Adrian Swayne Hollis (born 2 August 1940 in Bristol, England), is an English correspondence chess grandmaster (title awarded in 1976) and was British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1966 (jointly), 1967, and 1971.[1]
He studied classics at Christ Church, Oxford and represented Oxford University Chess Club in four annual Varsity chess matches (1959–1962), playing on the top board in the 1961 and 1962 matches.[2] He also played in the (over the board) British Chess Championship a number of times during the 1960s, with a best placing of seventh equal (in 1961).[3] He was a lecturer in classics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford and retired in 2007.
During a distinguished academic career his research has focused mainly on Hellenistic and Roman poetry. He has written many important articles on the fragmentary poems of Callimachus and published a full length commentary on the Hecale in 1990 (second edition 2009), but also ranged over authors as diverse as Euphorion, Choerilus, Lycophron, Horace, Propertius and Virgil. He also published a commentary on Ovid Ars Amatoria I (1970) and an edition of Fragments of Roman Poetry, c. 60 BC-AD 20 (2007).
Adrian Hollis is the son of Sir Roger Hollis, who served as Director-General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965. His uncle Christopher Hollis was a writer and Conservative politician, and he shares a grandfather, the Anglican later bishop-suffragan of Taunton, the Right Revd George Arthur Hollis (1868–1944), with first cousin Crispian Hollis who is the Bishop of Portsmouth for the Catholic Church.