Adrian Hollis

Who was Adrian Hollis?

Adrian Swayne Hollis, was a distinguished classical scholar and an English correspondence chess grandmaster. He was British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1966, 1967, and 1971; in 1982-87 he won the Ninth Correspondence Chess Olympiad, and in 1998 the World Postal Chess Championship as a member of the British team.

He was educated as a King's Scholar at Eton College, where he won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1958. He then studied Classics at Christ Church, Oxford and represented Oxford University Chess Club in four annual Varsity chess matches, playing on the top board in the 1961 and 1962 matches. He also played in the British Chess Championship a number of times during the 1960s, with a best placing of seventh equal. In 1964–1967 he was Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Humanity at St Andrews University. He moved back to Oxford to become a University Lecturer in Classics at Oxford University and a Tutorial Fellow of Keble College, Oxford in 1967 and remained there until his retirement in 2007.

During a distinguished academic career his research focused mainly on Hellenistic and Roman poetry. He wrote many important articles on the fragmentary poems of Callimachus and published a full length commentary on the Hecale in 1990, but also ranged over authors as diverse as Euphorion, Choerilus, Lycophron, Horace, Propertius and Virgil. He also published a commentary on Ovid Metamorphoses VIII and Ars Amatoria I, and an edition of Fragments of Roman Poetry, c. 60 BC-AD 20.