London booksellers Edward Chapman and William Hall formed a publishing partnership in 1830, to publish popular serials and part-works. In 1836 the firm commissioned Charles Dickens to write a series which became the Pickwick Papers, so beginning an association for the firm which was to be its mainstay for many years. Though best remembered as the publisher of Dickens, whose work it published in various collected editions well beyond his death, Chapman and Hall also published the novels of many of his contemporaries, such as Thackeray, Carlyle, Browning, Gaskell, Trollope, and George Meredith. Of a number of magazines published by the firm, the Fortnightly Review, which it published from 1865 to 1929, was the most distinguished, carrying opinion on art, finance, literature, philosophy, politics, and science by eminent commentators, as well as original novels in series.
In the early years of the twentieth century Chapman and Hall developed a strong scientific and technical list. In 1938 it merged with Methuen, then became part of Associated Book Publishers in 1955. When the Thomson Group bought Associated Book Publishers in 1987 Chapman and Hall continued as a publisher of scientific, technical and medical books and journals. In 1997 it was purchased by Wolters Klumer, who sold it to CRC Press, where it continued as a scientific publisher as Chapman & Hall/CRC.
