Chess endgame literature refers to books and magazines about chess endgames. A bibliography of endgame books is below. Many chess masters have contributed to the theory of endgames over the centuries, including Ruy López de Segura, François-André Philidor, Josef Kling and Bernhard Horwitz, Johann Berger, Alexey Troitsky, Yuri Averbakh, and Reuben Fine. Ken Thompson, Eugene Nalimov, and other computer scientists have contributed by constructing endgame tablebases. Some endgame books are general works about many different kinds of endgames whereas others are limited to specific endgames such as rook endgames or pawnless endgames. Most books are one volume (of varying size), but there are large multi-volume works. Most books cover endgames in which the proper course of action (see list of chess terms#Optimal play) has been analyzed in detail. However, an increasing number of books are about endgame strategy, where exact analysis is not currently possible, due to the presence of more pieces. These endgame strategy books fill the gap from the end of the middlegame to where the other type of books takes over. History of endgame literature The study of a few practical endgames are found in Arabic manuscripts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. However, these are from before the rule of pawn promotion, so most are of little value today . A thirteenth-century Latin book by an unknown author examined the endgame of a knight versus a pawn, and formed the basis of later work by Alexey Troitsky in the twentieth century. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a few types of endgames were studied, and opposition was known . Ruy López de Segura's 1561 book contained eight paragraphs on endgames. It used the Spanish rules in effect at the time, so a stalemate and baring the opponent's king were half-wins . In 1617 Pietro Carrera published knowledge of several types of endgames, including queen versus two bishops, two rooks versus a rook and a knight, and two rooks versus a rook and a bishop. Several writers published books developing endgame theory: Gioachino Greco in 1624, Philipp Stamma in 1737, and François-André Philidor in 1749 . In 1634 Alessandro Salvio analyzed endgames, including a key position in rook endgames . Philidor's book contained much more endgame analysis than earlier books. The first edition analyzed the rook and bishop versus rook endgame. Later editions covered the bishop and knight checkmate, rook and pawn versus bishop, queen versus rook