Paul Morphy - Urban Legends About His Life

Urban Legends About His Life

There are publications that claim Morphy "arranged women's shoes into a semi-circle around his bed", and that he died in his bath "surrounded by women's shoes". Edward Winter contends that this is not chess history but merely "lurid figments" stemming from a booklet written by Morphy's niece, Regina Morphy-Voitier. She wrote:

Now we come to the room which Paul Morphy occupied, and which was separated from his mother’s by a narrow hall. Morphy’s room was always kept in perfect order, for he was very particular and neat, yet this room had a peculiar aspect and at once struck the visitor as such, for Morphy had a dozen or more pairs of shoes of all kinds which he insisted in keeping arranged in a semi-circle in the middle of the room, explaining with his sarcastic smile that in this way, he could at once lay his hands on the particular pair he desired to wear. In a huge porte-manteau he kept all his clothes which were at all times neatly pressed and creased.

Therefore, because they were his own shoes, it is concluded that these "seedy anecdotes" (as Winter puts it) are untrue.