Morphy, Staunton, Anderssen, and the unofficial World Championship Title
Back in Morphy's day, there was no official World Champion or world championship.
However, it was known at the time that Howard Staunton was the World's top chess player. In 1958 the New Orlean's Chess club put together the prize money and arranged a world championship match between Staunton and Morphy. Staunton was guaranteed $1000 ( a boatload of money back then) just for playing. Staunton denied the invitation, saying it was not worth it for him to travel to the United States just to play Morphy.
Determined, Morphy went to Europe with the intention of playing Staunton either casually or in a formal match. On June 21st, 1858, Morphy popped into Staunton's chess club, The St. George Chess Club in England. He challenged Staunton to a friendly game, but Stauntoned chickened out with a poor excuse. For the next month, Morphy pursued a match with Staunton to no avail, at every juncture, Staunton would postpone any arranged meeting. Finally Morphy gave up, knowing Staunton would never risk his reputation to play Morphy.
Frustrated, Morphy arranged a match with the second best of the world's players, Germany's Adolf Anderssen. Anderssen and Morphy arranged to meet in Paris for an official match. Morphy was a fan of Anderssen who had allready played two brilliancies that were world famous... The Immortal Game, and The Evergreen Game. Ironically, while waiting for Anderrsen in Paris, Morphy played the most famous game of his life...The Opera House Massacre Game , which would go down in history as one of the most famous games ever played. While in Europe, before meeting Anderssen, Morphy came down with a severe case of intestinal flue and ended up hospitalized. Not wanting to be rude, Morphy insisted on playing Anderssen in a casual match at his hospital bed's side. Morphy soundly defeated Anderrsen who would later admit that Morphy was superior to him in chess, even though Morphy never claimed the world title.