John Jay Chapman

John Jay Chapman 1862-1933, American essayist and poet, b. New York City, grad. Harvard, 1885. He was admitted to the bar in 1888, but after 10 years abandoned law for literature. Active in the anti-Tammany reform movement in the 1890s, Chapman was an active supporter of civil rights, and a fiery and pertinent observer of politics. Among his works are Emerson and Other Essays (1898), Memories and Milestones (1915), Songs and Poems (1919), and New Horizons in American Life (1932). He also wrote several plays, including The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold (1910).

Bibliography: See his selected writings ed. by J. Barzun (1968); studies by R. B. Hovey (1959) and M. H. Bernstein (1964).

Chapman, John Jay (1862–1933), literary critic, translator, essayist, was a strong individualist in his eclectic criticism based on an “essentially aristocratic” and Emersonian appreciation of individualism. His books include Emerson and Other Essays (1898), Learning and Other Essays (1910), William Lloyd Garrison (1913, revised 1921), Memories and Milestones (1915), Greek Genius and Other Essays (1915), Letters and Religion (1924), and New Horizons in American Life (1932). He was the author of many plays, including The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold (1910), “a play for a Greek theatre.” His Songs and Poems were collected in 1919, and in 1937 M.A. DeWolfe Howe issued John Jay Chapman and His Letters.