Poets

He was born in New York City. His father, Henry Grafton Chapman, was a broker who eventually became president of the New York Stock Exchange. He was educated at Harvard, was admitted to the bar in 1888, and practiced law until 1898. Meanwhile he had attracted attention as an essayist of unusual merit. His work is marked by originality and felicity of expression, and in the opinion of many critics has placed him in the front rank of the American essayists of his day.

He is the subject of an interesting biographical and critical essay by Edmund Wilson in The Triple Thinkers which recounts the reasons behind Chapman's deliberately burning off his own left hand.