teststr='chapter 1 Here is a block of text from chapter one. chapter 2 Here is another block of text from the second chapter. chapter 3 Here is the third and final block of text.'
my_result =[x.strip()for x inre.split(r'(?!^)(?=chapter \d)', teststr)]
['chapter 1 Here is a block of text from chapter one.', 'chapter 2 Here is another block of text from the second chapter.', 'chapter 3 Here is the third and final block of text.']