Bibliography

Fact

The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine by Tom Standage — An excellent read, this streamlined, comprehensive and extremely well-written book first introduced me to the automaton.
Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Wood — also known as Living Dolls, this book has an entire chapter devoted to the chess-playing automaton. The other chapters give in-depth information on Thomas Edison's attempt at a talking doll, Vaucanson's duck, and the Doll family: all fascinating attempts to create life with mechanisms — or use life to give the illusion of mechanism. Fascinating, thorough, and a must-read, this book also helped inspire Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Chess: Man vs. Machine by Bradley Ewart — I was given a copy of this book by John Gaughan, the man who created his own working version of The Turk. It proved immensely helpful, and is chock full of pictures, engravings and photographs of the places The Turk travelled, the people it affected, and the imitators it inspired. Clockwork Game wouldn't be nearly as accurate without it. Incredibly thorough, accurate, and detailed, this may be the best factual book on The Turk; however, it doesn't read with the same ease as Standage's The Turk or Wood's Edison's Eve.
The Illustrated History of Magic by Milbourne Christopher — Provides a short but excellent introduction to the automaton.

Fiction

The Chess Machine by Robert Löhr — This account of the automaton is set during von Kempelen's lifetime, and tells the story of its debut at Schöbrunn Palace, along with the aftermath. Telling any more, unfortunately, would ruin the surprise. A pleasant enough read, but not historically accurate.
Kingkill by Thomas Gavin — In his darkly beautiful first novel, Gavin puts Maelzel through the same transmogrifier that Peter Shaffer used on Salieri in his outstanding play Amadeus, turning Maelzel into a truly evil antagonist. The plot is staggeringly accurate to historical fact, yet Gavin injects a deep vein of highly believable fiction through its center, until even I had trouble telling one from the other. Thick, heavy prose curls in every corner of the book, sometimes weighing it down, sometimes raising it up; I found this a quite dense but excellent read.

Memoirs and Correspondence (official and Familiar) of Sir Robert Murray Keith — a firsthand account of one man's interaction with the automaton.

(more historical texts will be listed — as soon as their presence won't spoil the story!)