Fiske Daniel Willard (11.11.1831 – 17.09.1904)

American author, editor, chess collector and philanthropist. Fiske’s work in 1857 brought about the First American Chess Congress, the advent of Paul Morphy as well as the American Chess Monthly.  This very fine magazine lasted for nearly four and a half years and its end was hastened by the civil war (1857-1860).

In 1861 Fiske was appointed as an Attaché to the American Embassy in Vienna.  In 1864 he returned to America and in 1868 became a Professor of Northern European languages and University Librarian at Cornell.  He went to live in Florence, Italy and established a private printing press which produced one famous book, ”Chess in Iceland”, amongst many others.  He had a fascination with Iceland; his library was bequeathed to the National Library of Reykjavik and had 1200 volumes.

Upon his death, Fiske left a bequest of 32,000 volumes, the Fiske Icelandic Collection, to Cornell University along with funds.