[2][3] The Handbuch had been the project of Paul Rudolf von Bilguer, who was with von der Lasa a member of the Berlin Chess Club and the influential group of chess masters later called the Berlin Pleiades.

It contained comprehensive analyses of all opening variations then known, plus a section on the history and literature of chess.

Carl Schlechter, who had drawn a match for the World Championship with Emanuel Lasker in 1910, prepared the eighth and final edition.

Published in eleven parts between 1912 and 1916, it totaled 1,040 pages and included contributions by Rudolf Spielmann, Siegbert Tarrasch, and Richard Teichmann.

International Master William Hartston called it "a superb work, perhaps the last to encase successfully the whole of chess knowledge within a single volume".