Background

Chambers Edmund Kerchever was born on the 16th of March, 1866 in West Ilsley, Berkshire, United Kingdom. He was the son of thу Reverend William Chambers, a curate, and his wife, Anna Heathcote.

Education

Edmund Kerchever Chambers studied at Marlborough College and Corpus Christi College in Oxford.

Later in life, Chamber received a Doctor of Letters degree from Durham in 1922 and Oxford in 1939.

Career

Edmund Kerchever Chambers began his career at the National Education Department, where he worked in 1893. He served under Sir Robert Morant as a permanent secretary to the newly constituted Board of Education from 1903. In 1921, he became the second secretary and was retired in 1926.

During his years as a civil servant, Chambers did much higher journalism and edited many editions of the English classics, especially Shakespeare. He also was the First President of the Malone Society from 1906 to 1939.

As the author, Kerchever produced a lot of works, among them are The History and Motives of Literary Forgeries: Being the Chancellor's English Essay for 1891 in 1891, The Mediaeval Stage in 1903, Shakespearean Gleanings in 1941, English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages in 1945, Matthew Arnold in 1947. However, Chambers's greatest work was The Elizabethan Stage, a great examination of the history and conditions of English theatre in the medieval and Renaissance periods.

Achievements

• Sir Edmund K. Chambers was a distin­guished literary critic, historian, and editor. His books, including The Medieval Stage, The Elizabethan Stage, and many critical works on William Shakespeare, are known for their breadth and scholarly exactness and are considered classics on medieval and Elizabethan English literature.
  
  Chambers received The Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1912. He also got Order of the British Empire in 1925. Edmund got an honorary fellowship at Corpus Christi College in 1934.
  
  

Works

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• book

  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Biographical Study

    (A biographical study of Coleridge's character and persona...)

    1938
  • The History and Motives of Literary Forgeries

    (Being the Chancellor's English Essay for 1891)

    1891
  • The Mediaeval Stage 1903
  • Notes on the History of the Revels Office Under the Tudors 1906
  • Sir Thomas Malory 1922
  • The Elizabethan Stage 1923
  • Shakespeare: A survey 1963
  • English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages 1945

Membership

In 1924, E. K. Chambers was elected a fellow of the British Academy.

Connections

Edmund Kerchever Chambers was married to Eleanor Christabel Bowman.

Father:

William Chambers

Mother:

Anna Heathcote

Wife:

Eleanor Christabel Bowman