William Chambers (publisher) - W. & R. Chambers

W. & R. Chambers

Main article: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. See also: Robert Chambers (journalist)

In the beginning of 1832 William Chambers started a weekly publication under the title of Chambers's Journal, (known since 1854 as Chambers's Journal of Literature, Science and Arts), which speedily attained a large circulation and to which his younger brother Robert Chambers was at first only a contributor. After fourteen issues had appeared, Robert became associated with his brother as joint editor, and his collaboration may have contributed more than anything else to the success of the Journal. From September 1832 the two brothers formed the book publishing firm of W. & R. Chambers Publishers. The firm would eventually become part of Chambers Harrap Publishers in the late twentieth century.

Among the other numerous works of which Robert was in whole or in part the author, the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (4 vols., Glasgow, 1832–1835), the Cyclopædia of English Literature (1844), the Life and Works of Robert Burns (4 vols., 1851), Ancient Sea Margins (1848), the Domestic Annals of Scotland (1859–1861) and the Book of Days (2 vols., 1862–1864) were the most important.