Sir E. K. Chambers (Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers) Biography

British historian of the English stage, born at West Ilsley, Berkshire, educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he produced an edition of Shakespeare's Richard II (1891). From 1892 until his retirement he held a succession of posts in the Civil Service, rising to become a Second Secretary. His reputation as a scholar was established with The Mediaeval Stage (2 volumes, 1903), a study of the dramatic tradition out of which the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries arose. The Elizabethan Stage (4 volumes, 1923) displays his characteristic concern to present the history of English drama with detailed reference to its social and economic contexts. Among his numerous other publications are William Shakespeare: A Study of the Facts and Problems (2 volumes, 1930); Arthur and Britain (1927), a survey of the variant Arthurian legends; and the critical biographies Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1938) and Matthew Arnold (1947). His edition of the Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse appeared in 1932. He was the first president of the Malone Society from 1906 to 1936.