Education
He was educated at the High School of Dundee, Street Andrews University and Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First in classics and humanities.
assistant secretary collector scholars
He was educated at the High School of Dundee, Street Andrews University and Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First in classics and humanities.
Chapman was the youngest of six children born to an Anglican clergyman, who died when he was three years old. He worked as assistant to the secretary of the Clarendon Press. 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
In 1923 Chapman produced an edition of five novels of Jane Austen. Further Austen miscellania were published separately in the 1920s and 1930s before being collected together as a sixth volume, Minor, of The Novels of Jane Austen.
He also edited (1932) Austen"s correspondence, though this involved him in some controversy with Austen"s critics.
In 1948, Chapman rejected the authenticity of the Rice portrait of Jane Austen based on costume evidence.