Robert William Chambers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | May 26, 1865 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | December 16, 1933 (aged 68) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novel and short story author |
| Genre | Art Nouveau, decadent literature, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, romance, science fiction, supernatural |
| Notable works | The King in Yellow |
| Signature | |
 | |
Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.
Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers (1827–1911), a corporate and bankruptcy lawyer, and Caroline Smith Boughton (1842–1913). His parents met when his mother was twelve years old and William P. was interning with her father, Joseph Boughton, a prominent corporate lawyer. Eventually the two formed the law firm of Chambers and Boughton which continued to prosper even after Joseph's death in 1861. Robert Chambers's great-grandfather, William Chambers (birth unknown), a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, was married to Amelia Saunders (1765–1822), a great granddaughter of Tobias Saunders of Westerly, Rhode Island. The couple moved from Westerly to Greenfield, Massachusetts and then to Galway, New York, where their son, also William Chambers (1798–1874), was born. The second William graduated from Union College at the age of 18, and then went to a college in Boston, where he studied medicine. Upon graduating, he and his wife, Eliza P. Allen (1793–1880), a direct descendant of Roger Williams,[1] the founder of Providence, Rhode Island, were among the first settlers of Broadalbin, New York. His brother was the architect Walter Boughton Chambers.
Chambers was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was a fellow student. Chambers studied in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter, written in 1887 in Munich. His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of Art Nouveau short stories published in 1895. This included several famous weird short stories which are connected by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title, which drives those who read it insane.[2] E. F. Bleiler described The King in Yellow as one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction.[3] It was also strongly admired by H. P. Lovecraft and his circle.
Chambers returned to the weird genre in his later short story collections The Maker of Moons, The Mystery of Choice and The Tree of Heaven, but none earned him as much success as The King in Yellow. Some of Chambers's work contains elements of science fiction, such as In Search of the Unknown and Police!!!, about a zoologist who encounters monsters.[4]
Chambers's main work of historical fiction was a series of novels set during the Franco-Prussian War. These novels were The Red Republic (1895, centring on the Paris Commune), Lorraine (1898), Ashes of Empire (1898) and Maids of Paradise (1903).[5][6][7] Chambers wrote Special Messenger (1909), Ailsa Paige (1910) and Whistling Cat (1932), novels set during the American Civil War.[7] Chambers also wrote Cardigan (1901), a historical novel for younger readers, set at the outbreak of the American Revolution.[6][7] Chambers later turned to writing romantic fiction to earn a living. According to some estimates, Chambers had one of the most successful literary careers of his period, his later novels selling well and a handful achieving best-seller status.[7] Chambers' romance novels often featured intimate relationships between "caddish" men and sexually willing women, resulting in some reviewers accusing Chambers' works of promoting immorality.[7] Many of his works were also serialised in magazines.
His novel The Man They Hanged was about Captain Kidd, and argued that Kidd was not a pirate but had been made a scapegoat by the British government.[1]
During World War I, Chambers wrote war adventure novels and war stories, some of which showed a strong return to his old weird style, such as "Marooned" in Barbarians (1917). After 1924 he devoted himself solely to writing historical fiction.
Chambers for several years made Broadalbin, New York, his summer home. Some of his novels touch upon colonial life in Broadalbin and Johnstown.
On July 12, 1898, he married Elsa (Elsie) Vaughn Moller (1872–1939). They had a son, Robert Edward Stuart Chambers (1899–1955) (who sometimes used the name Robert Husted Chambers).
Robert W. Chambers died on December 16, 1933, after having undergone intestinal surgery three days earlier.[1]
H. P. Lovecraft said of Chambers in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith:
Chambers is like Rupert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans – equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them.[8]
Despite Chambers's effective later abandonment of the weird supernatural tale, these early works are all that remained in print through most of the twentieth century, thanks to Lovecraft's inclusion of them in the critical study "Supernatural Horror in Literature".
Frederic Taber Cooper commented:
So much of Mr Chambers's work exasperates, because we feel that he might so easily have made it better."[9]
In an overview of Chambers' historical fiction, Wendy Bousfield stated that the historical novel Cardigan was "Chambers' most highly praised historical novel" during his lifetime. Bousfield also argued that much of Chambers' historical fiction was marred by poorly written characters and "insensitive humor at the expense of ethnic types". Bousfield also wrote that "Chambers' trivializing of human relationships is regrettable, since his recreation of period details of dress and daily life is vivid and historically accurate."[7]
Critical studies of Chambers's horror and fantasy work include Lee Weinstein's essay in Supernatural Fiction Writers,[10] Brian Stableford's essay in the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers[11] and a chapter in S. T. Joshi's book The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004).
Chambers's novel The Tracer of Lost Persons was adapted into a long-running (1937–54) radio crime drama, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, by soap opera producers Frank and Anne Hummert.[12]
Chambers's The King in Yellow has inspired many modern authors, including Karl Edward Wagner, Joseph S. Pulver, Lin Carter, James Blish, Nic Pizzolatto, Michael Cisco, Stephen King, Ann K. Schwader, Robert M. Price, Galad Elflandsson and Charles Stross.
