This problem took me far longer to solve than I care to admit, but represents a rare success among those I've attempted in a book new to my shelves.
White to move
The problem was composed by George Edward Carpenter (1844-1924) and appears in
Anthology of Chess Problems, 2nd ed. (2021) by Milan Velimirović and Marjan Kovačević. Chess Informant brought it out 25 years after the original.
The first problem in the book was familiar to me as I had seen it before. I found it and others from
Bonus Socius (a fourteenth century manuscript) in H.J.R. Murray,
A History of Chess (1913) after one of these ancient puzzles appeared in another book.
White to move
Neither of the two medieval problems that begin the anthology gave me difficulty, but then I struggled. In some cases, I looked at the correct answer, but failed to examine it carefully enough. The exercises in the anthology are doing little to build my self-confidence, but offer plenty of delight when I peek at the solution.
In particular, this one composed by Joseph Plachutta (1827-1883), which appeared in
Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1868. Short of examining every legal move, I doubt I could have found the key. Now that I have seen the answer, however, I appreciate the beauty of the composer's idea.
White to move
Anthology of Chess Problems gathers 2345 compositions that all lead to checkmate in two to five moves.
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