High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Vernon Rylands Parton (2 October 1897 – 31 December 1974) was an English chess enthusiast and prolific chess variant inventor, his most renowned variant being Alice Chess. Many of Parton`s variants were inspired by the fictional characters and stories in the works of Lewis Carroll. Parton`s formal education background, like Lewis Carroll`s, was in mathematics. Parton`s interests were wide and he was a great believer in Esperanto.