Chapman spent the early 1590s abroad, and saw military action in the Low Countries fighting under renowned English general Sir Francis Vere.

Eastward Ho (1605), written with Jonson and John Marston, contained satirical references to the Scottish courtiers who formed the retinue of the new king James I; this landed Chapman and Jonson in jail at the suit of Sir James Murray of Cockpool, the king's "rascal[ly]" Groom of the Stool.

[4] Various of their letters to the king and noblemen survive in a manuscript in the Folger Library known as the Dobell MS, and published by AR Braunmuller as A Seventeenth Century Letterbook.

The poem lampooning Jonson's aggressive behaviour and self-believed superiority remained unpublished during Chapman's lifetime; it was found in documents collected after his death.

[6] The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron offended the French ambassador, probably because it included a scene which portrayed Henry IV's wife and mistress arguing and physically fighting, and Robert Cecil was persuaded to issue a warrant for Chapman's arrest.

[7] On publication, the offending material was excised, and Chapman refers to the play in his dedication to Sir Thomas Walsingham as "poore dismembered Poems".

His only work of classical tragedy, Caesar and Pompey (written 1604, published 1631), although "politically astute", can be regarded as his most modest achievement in the genre.

The play was purchased from Chapman by Thomas Woodford & Edward Pearce for 20 marks (a considerable amount for such a work at the time) and resulted in a legal case that went before the Star Chamber.

According to Kenneth Muir, The Masque of the Twelve Months, performed on Twelfth Night 1619 and first printed by John Payne Collier in 1848 with no author's name attached, is also ascribed to Chapman.

He has been put forward as the author, in whole or in part, of Sir Giles Goosecap, Two Wise Men And All The Rest Fools, The Fountain of New Fashions, and The Second Maiden's Tragedy.

[12] The lost plays The Fatal Love and A Yorkshire Gentlewoman And Her Son were assigned to Chapman in Stationers' Register entries in 1660.

Other poems by Chapman include: De Guiana, Carmen Epicum (1596), on the exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh; a continuation of Christopher Marlowe's unfinished Hero and Leander (1598); and Euthymiae Raptus; or the Tears of Peace (1609).

Chapman often extends and elaborates on Homer's original contents to add descriptive detail or moral and philosophical interpretation and emphasis.

Chapman also translated the Homeric Hymns, the Georgics of Virgil, The Works of Hesiod (1618, dedicated to Francis Bacon), the Hero and Leander of Musaeus (1618) and the Fifth Satire of Juvenal (1624).

[18] The English poet John Keats wrote "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" for his friend Charles Cowden Clarke in October 1816.