jessicafischerqueen: THE SAD END OF CHESS CHAMPION WILHELM STEINITZ
<The chronology of Steinitz's bouts with madness up to the time of his death:>
After his release from the Morosov Institute in Moscow on March 12, 1897, Steinitz went to great lengths to convince the world that he had never once "gone mad" in Moscow, and that he had in truth been held against his will.
In a perhaps bizarre public letter, Steinitz blamed his incarceration on the angry uncle of a teenage Russian secretary named "Polly" with whom he claimed to have had a notorious romantic affair. Steinitz reports that Polly demanded that he divorce his wife, which he refused to do. Polly then wrote his wife directly "offering to purchase me."
The affair ended badly- very badly for Steinitz, if he's to be believed- since Polly's complaints, conveyed through her uncle, to Moscow authorities led to his unwilling, and unjustified detention in the Morosov clinic.
It should be noticed that the first line of Steinitz's account of this tale is
"It sounds like a fairy tale..."
It would not be till after his return to New York after the London 1899 tournament that Steinitz actually "went mad."
On February 13, 1900 Steinitz was committed to Bellevue Hospital and transferred 4 days later to the Ward's Island State Mental Asylum. Due to strenuous efforts on the part of his friends, the New York newspapers, and the Manhattan Chess Club to raise sufficient funds, he was moved to much more amenable quarters at the private River Crest Sanitarium in Astoria, New York.
On April 7, 1900, he was released to the care of his family.
On April 27 he was recommitted to Bellevue Hospital, where he died on August 12.
On the afternoon of the day of his death, one of the worst electrical storms in New York history devastated Manhattan, killing several people by fire and flood and wounding hundreds more.
A befitting end, perhaps, to the "King Lear" of chess history.
I found the preceding information in the following source:
<"William Steinitz, Chess Champion. A biography of the Bohemian Caesar"by Kurt Landsberger
pp. 338-392>
Kibitzing
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