François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) is widely regarded as the strongest chess player ever in history prior to the modern era. He was so much better than any of his contemporaries that it is impossible for us to know how good he really was. The edition of the book that is reprinted here was published in 1871 by C. Sanson. This shows that the original Philidor book was still the standard work on the subject one hundred years after it was first written. It includes 68 games by Philidor as compiled by George Walker in 1832. These 68 games were not in the original book because they were all played after the original book was published.All 68 games have been translated into modern algebraic notation and are included in an appendix to this book.