The author of Charles Dickens and his Publishers (1978) wrote of him: "Frederic Chapman rose to the status of partner.

The expansion of railways, circulating libraries, and middle-class leisure improved book sales; Dickens's full-scale return to Chapman and Hall in 1859 afforded Frederic an opportunity to issue a new Dickens periodical, All the Year Round, and new serial fictions, and to reissue in new formats older titles and multiple collected editions - all of which eventually turned a profit.

[3] Percy Fitzgerald, who was also published by him, later wrote of Chapman: "An excellent fellow he was somewhat blunt and bluff, but straightforward and good-natured.

"[1] In 1860 Frederic Chapman projected The Fortnightly Review, which was eventually published twice a month in 1865 and was first edited by George Henry Lewes.

His biographer, Robert L. Patten, wrote: "Chapman, backed by several wealthy friends, arranged for a multi-year buy-out and became chief proprietor.

In this position he embarked upon a pushing and successful policy of bulk sales to large distributors for railway and overseas markets.

For a time he published the works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Thomas Carlyle, Harrison Ainsworth, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough, Charles Lever, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Kingsley, Anthony Trollope and George Meredith were all clients of the firm.

[6] His second wife, who survived him, was Annie Marion, daughter of Sir Robert Harding, chief commissioner in bankruptcy.