Chambers was educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and then the Art Students' League. From there he studied in Paris at the ?cole des Beaux-Arts and at Acad?mie Julian from 1886 to 1893. His illustrative work was good and displayed at the Salon from as early as 1889.
On returning to New York he sold illustrations to Life Truth and Vogue magazines. His career then took a dramatic turn for reasons that are not entirely clear. His new expression was in writing. He had written his first novel in 1887 ?In the Quarter? and felt that was where his time would now be best spent.
His best-known work is ?The King in Yellow? (1895) a highly vivid collection of Art Nouveau short stories. These stories are woven together by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title which drives those who read it insane.
This classic of Weird fiction was a genre he would return to again in several short story collections during his career.
Chambers was also a writer of historical fiction and wrote many including a trilogy of novels set during the earlier Franco-Prussian War.
Robert W. Chambers died on 16th December 1933 three days after intestinal surgery.
?The Repairer of Reputations? from ?The King in Yellow? is a mind-bending and disruptive story that adds just enough reality that the unreal elements seem totally at home in the descent to chaos.
