Clockwork Game: The Illustrious Career of a Chess-Playing Automaton

The overlay text in this week’s page is taken directly from Franklin’s Morals of Chess. I’ve heavily edited it down for space, but I don’t think I’ve lost any of the meaning. Chess experts and historians, however, are welcome to quibble this point; input is always good.

This scene constitutes some of the first real conjecture of the script; it’s pretty well established that Franklin played the automaton, but the outcome of the match is unknown. Some historians have speculated that the best evidence for Franklin having lost the game is that he didn’t publish any letters or pamphlets about his victory.

I also find it incredibly sweet that von Kempelen is such a fanboy around Franklin. It certainly would have been difficult not to be; Franklin was a total science rockstar at the time.