Publisher's Synopsis
Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 - December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories entitled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.He 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 Caroline 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's great-grandfather, William Chambers (birth unknown), a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, was married to Amelia Saunders, (1765-1822), the great grand daughter 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 to be a doctor. Upon graduating, he and his wife, Eliza P. Allen (1793-1880), a direct descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, Rhode Island were among the first settlers of Broadalbin, New York. His brother was architect Walter Boughton Chambers. Robert 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 his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris 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.E. F. Bleiler described The King in Yellow as one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction.It was also strongly admired by H. P. Lovecraft and his circle... Arthur Ignatius Keller (1866 - 1924).A. I. Keller was born July 4th, 1866. He was the son of Matilda and Adam Keller, a designer and engraver who recognized and encouraged his son's artistic talent. Arthur's father was his first teacher. By the age of seventeen, he began his formal training at the National Academy of Design in New York, studying under Professor Lemuel Wilmarth. In 1890 Keller traveled to Munich, Germany to study under Ludwig von Loeffiz. After two years of study he returned to the United States. His father had tried to persuade Arthur to remain in Europe to study in France, as the influence of impressionism was gaining in popularity. But Arthur did not wish to experiment with a genre that was so different from the classical styles that he was developing. In a letter dated 1891 Arthur replied to his father, "This I positively know, namely, I hardly would ever think of entering the Art School in Paris. In fact, I'm already thinking of leaving for good to develop that grain of art which I have sowed here."....
