Robert Harris Chapman [1919-2000], was born in Highland Park, Illinois. He attended Princeton University and in 1941 graduated with a degree in English. He served as a Lieutenant in the U. S. Navy during World War II and his wartime duty was in Morocco. In 1950 he started his career at Harvard University, where he retired in 1989. His courses were popular with undergraduates and included Modern Drama, Playwriting, Theatre History, British Theatre of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and George Bernard Shaw. He became a Professor of English Literature, was an accomplished playwright, a theatrical consultant, and Director of the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University. He was a colleague and long-time friend of Robert Penn Warren.

This collection was purchased in 2003.