Father and Son

by Gosse, Edmund; Newton, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780192840660
• ISBN10: 0192840665
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Edmund Gosse wrote of his account of his life, "This book is the record of a struggle between two temperaments, two consciences and almost two epochs." Father and Son remains one of English literature's seminal autobiographies. In it, Edmund Gosse recounts, with humor and pathos, his childhood as a member of a Victorian Protestant sect and his struggles to forge his own identity despite the loving control of his father. His work is a key document of the crisis of faith and doubt and a penetrating exploration of the impact of evolutionary science. An astute, well-observed, and moving portrait of the tensions of family life, Father and Son remains a classic of twentieth-century literature. This edition contains an illuminating introduction, and provides a series of fascinating appendices including extracts from Philip Gosse's Omphalos and Edmund Gosse's harrowing account of his wife's death from breast cancer.

Author Biography

Michael M. Newton is Lecturer in English at University College, London.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	ix
Note on the Text	xxix
Select Bibliography	xxxvi
A Chronology of Edmund Gosse	xxxix
FATHER AND SON	1	(186)
Appendix 1. From A Memorial of the Last Day on Earth of Emily Gosse by P.H. Gosse	187	(9)
Appendix 2. From Omphalos by P.H. Gosse	196	(6)
Appendix 3. From The Life of Philip Henry Gosse FRS by Edmund Gosse	202	(3)
Appendix 4. Two letters from Sir James Frazer to Edmund Gosse	205	(2)
Explanatory Notes	207