Napoleon Marache was a chess player, problem composer, and journalist. He was born in France and moved to the United States at around 12 years of age. He learned the game of chess around 1844, and immediately became a devotee. He began composing chess problems and writing about chess the following year. In the mid-19th century, he was both one of America's first chess journalists and one of its leading players. In 1866, he published Marache's Manual of Chess, which was one of the country's first books on chess, and also one of its first books on backgammon. He is perhaps best known today for having lost a famous game to Paul Morphy.

Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player. During his brief career in the late 1850s Morphy was acknowledged as the world's greatest chess master.