I had Jan Pinski's book The Two Knights Defense and it helped me get the general grasp of the Italian Game.  Now I look at it and there are quite a few holes in the analysis and the Traxler section was not very good. 

I can answer any questions you have with the Traxler.  The project my group worked on has expanded to 45 members and we have found a few more novelties which make it just about playable.

On the Evans Gambit, the older Cafferty/Harding work (1976) gives more material on side-lines. Harding did some research, e.g. he used the 8th edition of the Handbuch ("Bilguer"), edited by Carl Schlechter from 1913-1916. However he did not have access to the pre-1900 volumes of [Deutsche] Schachzeitung, as he writes in the Bibliography. 

In Kaissiber #20 (2005) I compared analyses from New in Chess Yearbook 73, claiming to refute Berthold Suhle's 8.Ba3, with the 27 pages of original articles by Suhle and Anderssen in Schachzeitung 1859 and 1860 and the Suhle & Neumann book from 1865. I found that the old material was of high quality and contained valuable ideas ignored in the new article. I believe that 8.Ba3 is still OK. - It is a must to have an up-to-date work on the Evans, but I also recommend to get inspiration from sources from the 19th century. Much of it is available online, at no cost.

Well any idea what color you will be playing? (White or black) or what lines you intend to focus on (the 4. d3 or 4. Ng5 etc).

As far as just pure literature goes....


Evans Gambit and A System versus the Two Knights by Tim Harding 1996 Revised 2nd Edition
Two Knight’s Defence and Traxler Counter Gambit by Jozsef Palkovi, 2001
The Two Knights’ Defence by Jan Pinski
The Two Knights’ Defence by Alexander Beliavksky and Adrian Mikhalchishin
The Two Knights Defence by Yakov Estrin 1983


Palkovi & Estrin's works are outprint but easily the best work on the 2N despite being dated.

I've heard mixed reviews of the new chessbase dvd by IM Lawrence trent.


I actually thought Pinski's work to be very sloppy - missing critical variations and moves. Extremely biased at intervals. Beliavsky is okay especially as an introductory work but many of the detailed analysis can't be trusted. Chesspublishing has some great stuff on the 2N - if you aren't subscribing already you should. Also, the forums has some wonderful threads on this as well. There have been many seperate treatises if you are interesting in the some what dubious but highly complex Traxler system.

As for the Evans Gambit...

(DVD) The ABC of Evans Gambit by Andrew Martin

Is a fantastic overview of the modern take on the line and critical positions you should know.


Great Evans Gambit Debate by Michael Rohde is just a cheap fun short work to get the juices flowing on the opening.

Harding had two books with Chess Digest in the 90's the second was an updated version of the first, with the name "Evan's Gambit and a system against two knights". In the second edition  he had a reply to someone called Moody, so I believe and that guy had a book on the Evans. Also check Harding's column at chesscafe.com . My personal opinion it is if you want to play the Evans please try to play and analyze games from Tschigorin and only after to go and study any other book.