R. W. Chambers (Raymond Wilson Chambers) Biography

British philologist and literary historian, born at Staxton in East Yorkshire, educated at University College London (UCL). In 1900 he became a fellow of UCL, where he succeeded W. P. Ker as Quain Professor in 1922. Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend (1912), an edition of Beowulf (1914), and Beowulf: An Introduction (1921) were among the works that established him as one of the twentieth century's foremost scholars of Old English literature. After the appearance of England Before the Norman Conquest (1926) the range of his activities broadened to extend from early Germanic literature to Shakespeare and Milton; the scope of his interests is reflected in Man's Unconquerable Mind (1939), a collection of essays on authors from Bede to A. E. Housman, whom he had known well at UCL. His best-known work outside the specialized fields of his contributions to philology is Thomas More (1935), a study of More's literary and historical importance, which drew commendation from the Vatican.