Philip Walsingham Sergeant


Philip Walsingham Sergeant was a British professional writer on chess and popular historical subjects. He collaborated on the fifth, sixth, and seventh editions of Modern Chess Openings, an important reference work on the chess openings. He also wrote biographical game collections of Paul Morphy and Morphy Gleanings ), Rudolf Charousek, and Harry Nelson Pillsbury, and other important books such as A Century of British Chess and Championship Chess.
Harry Golombek writes that, "Without any pretensions to mastership, he represented Oxford University in the years 1892-5". Golombek considers A Century of British Chess probably Sergeant's best chess book, but opines that although Sergeant's chess books are lucidly written, they suffer from the defect that, as a non-master, he was not competent to deal with the annotational aspect of his work.
He was a second cousin of Edward Guthlac Sergeant.

Chess books

Sergeant wrote or co-wrote the following chess books. The ISBN, where given, refers to that assigned to a later republication of the book by Dover Publications.
Sergeant wrote or co-wrote the following books on subjects other than chess. As in the previous section, the date of earliest known publication is given. The ISBN, where available, refers to that assigned to a later republication of the book.