Robert William Chapman (scholar)

Robert William Chapman (5 October 1881 in Eskbank, Scotland – 20 April 1960 in Oxford), usually known in print as R. W. Chapman, was a British scholar, book collector and editor of the works of Samuel Johnson and Jane Austen.

Chapman was the youngest of six children born to an Anglican clergyman, who died when he was three years old. He was educated at the High School of Dundee, St Andrews University and Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First in classics and humanities. He worked as assistant to the secretary of the Clarendon Press. In 1913 he married Katherine Marion Metcalfe, an English tutor at Somerville College. Chapman did military service in Salonika during World War I, managing to study the works of Johnson there and continue to write for the Times Literary Supplement.

After the war Chapman would remain in Oxford until his death. In 1920 he succeeded Charles Cannan as secretary of the Clarendon Press. He played a part in producing the Oxford English Dictionary, combining editorial and administrative responsibilities at the press.

Although Chapman is generally credited as the scholar who established Austen’s canonical status in the twentieth century, his wife played a key role in igniting his interest in book collecting as well as Jane Austen’s works. He himself cited her antiquarian interests as the inspiration of his book collecting career, and her editions of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey both preceded Chapman’s own. Her contribution to his work is self-evident in her ubiquitous handwriting in the Chapman archives. However, Chapman’s own negligence in acknowledging his wife’s contribution to his Jane Austen edition caused her work to go uncredited until later scholars such as David Gilson and Kathryn Sutherland proved otherwise.

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