![]() ![]() It is fascinating to follow von Kempelen's little charade and to wonder how it would be greeted today. (A replica of the original Turk is pictured above the original was destroyed by fire in 1854.) But, as Löhr writes in the author notes at the end of his book, there is a fair amount of the story that Löhr needed to fictionalize, including the sympathetic dwarf who is both von Kempelen's aid and antagonist, as well as von Kempelen's character, which Löhr admits deviates in the book from the known facts about the inventor and author. ![]() Von Kempelen really did construct the machine he really did have a small person inside playing the chess matches and he really did wow the public of late 18th-century imperial Europe. Unknown to me until I was mostly finished reading the book is that it is based on a very true story. But in fact there was a human inside, a dwarf who was able to remain unseen because of his small size and some false-backed drawer wizardry. ![]() Built in humanoid form and seated at a cabinet with a chess game atop it, the Turk - so-called because of its turban and the mystery such a connection provided to the Austrians in the age of the Ottomans - had back doors and front drawers and more that could be opened to give the audience a peek inside, demonstrating that there wasn't a human inside performing the automaton's chess moves. Unknown to the admirers but suspected by few, the automaton was a fraud. ![]()
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