Basil Hall Chamberlain

Basil Hall Chamberlain was a professor of Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during the late 19th century. He also wrote some of the earliest translations of haiku into English. He is perhaps best remembered for his informal and popular one-volume encyclopedia Things Japanese, which first appeared in 1890 and which he revised several times thereafter. His interests were diverse, and his works included a volume of poetry in French. Chamberlain was born in Southsea , the son of an Admiral William Charles Chamberlain and his wife Eliza Hall,... the daughter of the travel writer Basil Hall. His younger brother was Houston Stewart Chamberlain. He was brought up speaking French as well as English, even before moving to Versailles to live with his maternal grandmother in 1856 upon his mother's death. Once in France he acquired German as well. Chamberlain had hoped to study at Oxford, but instead started work at Barings Bank in London. He was unsuited to the work and soon had a nervous breakdown.
more