The Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit is a 1983 American novel by Walter Tevis, exploring the life of fictional female chess prodigy Beth Harmon. A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, it covers themes of adoption, feminism, chess, drug addiction and alcoholism. The book was adapted for the 2020 Netflix miniseries of the same name. Epigraph The novel's epigraph is "The Long-Legged Fly" by W. B. Yeats. This poem highlights one of the novel's main concerns: the inner workings of genius in a woman. Tevis discussed this concern in a 1983 interview, the year before his death. Development In a New York Times interview published at the time of his book's release in 1983, Tevis stated the story is "a tribute to brainy women." There has been speculation as to the inspiration for the Beth Harmon character, but Tevis emphatically denied that she was based on anyone in the chess community, male or female. In 2007, actor Heath Ledger was working on what would have been his feature directing debut, an adaptation of The Queen's Gambit, with British writer/producer Allan Scott.