Elk and Ruby

Elk and Ruby is an independent chess publishing house founded by Ilan Rubin in 2017, based in Canterbury, England. In under a decade, the press has built a catalog of over 100 titles in English, Spanish, and German, earning a reputation as one of the most respected names in chess literature.

The publisher is especially well known for its Soviet-era chess history books. Authors like Genna Sosonko have produced acclaimed works through Elk and Ruby, including The Rise and Fall of David Bronstein (with a foreword by Garry Kasparov) and Evil-Doer: Half a Century with Viktor Korchnoi. Alexander Koblenz's Mikhail Tal: The Street-Fighting Years, featuring a foreword by Alexei Shirov, is another standout title.

Elk and Ruby uses a print-on-demand model, which keeps overhead low and allows quick corrections to new editions. Ilan Rubin handles much of the editing and translation personally, giving the catalog a distinctive editorial voice. The result is a lean operation that can offer competitive royalties to authors while maintaining high production standards.

Beyond history, the catalog spans chess psychology (Maria Manakova's A Zillion Chess and Life Hacks), endgame studies (Sergei Tkachenko's piece-by-piece study series), and biographical deep dives (Tibor Karolyi's multi-volume Petrosian Year by Year). Their ebooks are also available through Forward Chess for readers who prefer digital formats.