An Invitation to Chess is perhaps the most successful chess book ever written, with sales of over 100,000. It is a basic beginners book, starting with the moves of the pieces and rapidly advancing to more complex problems and examples. About the Authors Kenneth Harkness was the inventor of the Chess Rating System. He was for many years the editor of Chess Review magazine, and was the author of the Blue Book and Encyclopedia of Chess and several other chess books. Irving Chernev was one of the most popular writers about the game of chess