Editing Ken Whyld (section)

{{Short description|British chess writer (1926–2003)}}
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{{Infobox chess biography
| country       = England
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|df=y|1926|3|6}}
| birth_place   = [[Nottingham]], England
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|df=y|2003|7|11|1926|3|6}}
| death_place   = 
}}
'''Kenneth Whyld''' (6 March 1926&nbsp;– 11 July 2003) was a British [[chess]] author and researcher, best known as the co-author (with [[David Vincent Hooper|David Hooper]]) of ''[[The Oxford Companion to Chess]]'', a single-volume chess reference work in English.

Whyld was a strong amateur chess player, taking part in the [[British Chess Championship]] in 1956 and winning the county championship of [[Nottinghamshire]]. He subsequently made his living in [[information technology]] while writing books on chess and researching its history.

As well as ''[[The Oxford Companion to Chess]]'', Whyld was the author of other reference works such as ''Chess: The Records'' (1986), an adjunct to the ''[[Guinness Book of Records]]'' and the comprehensive ''The Collected Games of [[Emanuel Lasker]]'' (1998). He also researched more esoteric subjects, resulting in works such as ''Alekhine Nazi Articles'' (2002) on articles in favour of the Nazi Party supposedly written by world chess champion [[Alexander Alekhine]], and the bibliographies ''Fake Automata in Chess'' (1994) and ''Chess Columns: A List'' (2002).

From 1978 until his death in 2003, Whyld wrote the "Quotes and Queries" column in the ''[[British Chess Magazine]]''.

A number of chess historians, including Dale Brandreth, Frank Skoff and [[Edward Winter (chess historian)|Edward Winter]], all of whom had close contact with Whyld, came to question his reliability and bona fides on certain issues.<ref>[http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/edge.html "Edge, Morphy and Staunton" by Edward Winter]</ref>

Shortly after Whyld's death, the Ken Whyld Association was established with the aim of compiling a comprehensive chess bibliography in database form and promoting chess history.

Whyld's library was later sold to the [[Musée Suisse du Jeu]], located on the shores of [[Lake Geneva]] in [[Switzerland]] (as reported in [https://web.archive.org/web/20171203040610/http://www.gadycosteff.com/eg/eg.html number 152] of ''[[EG (magazine)|EG]]'').