Louis Watson Chappell was a major figure in John Henry scholarship, producing as he did a seminal book on the subject in 1933, fours years after his rival Guy Benton Johnson had published his own book. Chappell's work is marked by an intensity and thoroughness that outdoes Johnson, who admitted in a 1975 (?) interview with Kip Lornell that Chappell's book is in "some ways very good."

Chappell's book is marred, in the view of many, by the carping attacks on John Harrington Cox and Johnson with which the Introduction, 20 pages, is chiefly concerned. If we had no other information about Chappell, we might conclude that he was an angry and bitter man.

Perhaps he was, but available online is a personal account of Chappell by Kenneth Walter Cameron, who knew him very well from 1929 to about the time of Chappell's retirement in 1952. This account presents Chappell in a much kinder light than Chappell's own works. It is available online, as PDF files, in two installments.

www.libraries.wvu.edu/wvcollection/newsletter/1985-1994/v4n2.pdf

www.libraries.wvu.edu/wvcollection/newsletter/1985-1994/v4n3.pdf