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'This book is the record of a struggle between two temperaments, two consciences and almost two epochs.' Father and Son stands as one of English literature's seminal autobiographies. In it Edmund Gosse recounts, with humour 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. A key document of the crisis of faith and doubt; 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. As well as an illuminating introduction, this edition also provides a series of fascinating appendices including extracts from Philip Gosse's Omphalos and his harrowing account of his wife's death from breast cancer.
201 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1907
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About the author
Edmund Gosse
755听books16听followersSir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic, now primarily remembered for his classic memoir,
Father and Son
(1907), detailing his difficult childhood in a religiously fanatical home.
An important and influential critic in his day, Gosse as a critic, essayist and correspondent is still very much worth reading today.
An important and influential critic in his day, Gosse as a critic, essayist and correspondent is still very much worth reading today.
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November 19, 2022
You have never read such a warm, loving portrait of a monster. This is the memoir of a boy growing up in a Christian cult in the 1850s, the cult was the Plymouth Brethren, and the father of this son was a guy who had drunk the koolaid. In fact he drank a gallon of it every day. It was Jesus this, the Lord that, the blood of the Lamb everywhere you looked, day in day out. This was a sect which did not celebrate any Christian holiday 鈥� they looked upon Christmas with horror, because, as you can see, it includes the word 鈥渕ass鈥�. And this was interesting because the father was a scientist, a zoologist and botanist, a writer of the definitive book on British sea anemones, and many many others. Always with one eye jammed in a microscope, examining God鈥檚 tiny miracles. (By the way the father had a passing resemblance to Oliver Reed, but that is not especially relevant.)
The kid was groomed to be a living saint and the Second Coming was expected next Thursday at the very latest. When next Thursday rolled around with no Jesus the father rushed back to the Book of Revelations to figure out where he had miscalculated.
If you are wondering what the kid was like, the kid was a classic geek.
At other times I dragged a folio volume of the Penny Cyclopedia up to the study with me, and sat there reading successive articles on such subjects as Parrots, Parthians, Passion-flowers, Passover and Pastry, without any invidious preferences, all information being equally welcome.
Since this kid had literally NO contact with other children until the age of ten (!!) it is no surprise he was odd.
This is a beautiful book which I would never have thought would have entranced me like it did. It mostly deals with the author as a little kid, between ages 5 and 9. I was expecting a different book. I thought there was going to be a big fight between the son who realises Darwin and evolution was right and there would be great dingdongs over the breakfast porridge and furious debates about Genesis and where were the dinosaurs on the Ark and all of that juicy stuff. But no, not a bit of it. This is not a spoiler, because readers shouldn鈥檛 have the misconception I had, so I will say that the kid as he grows up to be 15, 16, 17 just mentally disengages and drifts away from the Christian cult. He loves his monstrous father, he doesn鈥檛 want to hurt him. Why should he?
As an example of the monstrousness of the father, he has a fixed belief that physical ailments were inflicted directly by God to chastise the sufferer because of bad behaviour or spiritual deviance, 鈥渁nd not in relation to any physical cause鈥�. This guy who was a scrupulous naturalist believed something that normal people gave up believing in the 12th century. So when the kid gets a cold the father berates him for not cleaving his soul unto God鈥檚 grace more diligently, or some such nonsense.
As another example, when the son gets a job in London (unspecified but probably not as a song and dance man) the father bombards him with earnest beseeching imploring letters every day, literally, asking him for detailed account of the daily progress of his soul and the last conversations with God Almighty. The now teenaged Edmund regards each fresh letter at the breakfast table as the prisoner regards the thumb-screw.
One final word from the son about of the evangelical puritanism of his father 鈥� his father thought, naturally, that all non-Christians, all Catholics and 95% of all Protestants were condemned to Hell by the Almighty. Edmund comments :
He who was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain or distress of any person, however disagreeable, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension.
TRIGGER WARNING
I鈥檓 not myself much of a snowflake but even so I was pole-axed by one single very racist sentence in this 250 page book. I will not quote it as it would put you all off this book. It comes up when the kid is wondering if when he grows up he will be sent to Africa as a missionary. You can guess the rest. Should one sentence capsize an otherwise great book? Should modern editions remove it?
The kid was groomed to be a living saint and the Second Coming was expected next Thursday at the very latest. When next Thursday rolled around with no Jesus the father rushed back to the Book of Revelations to figure out where he had miscalculated.
If you are wondering what the kid was like, the kid was a classic geek.
At other times I dragged a folio volume of the Penny Cyclopedia up to the study with me, and sat there reading successive articles on such subjects as Parrots, Parthians, Passion-flowers, Passover and Pastry, without any invidious preferences, all information being equally welcome.
Since this kid had literally NO contact with other children until the age of ten (!!) it is no surprise he was odd.
This is a beautiful book which I would never have thought would have entranced me like it did. It mostly deals with the author as a little kid, between ages 5 and 9. I was expecting a different book. I thought there was going to be a big fight between the son who realises Darwin and evolution was right and there would be great dingdongs over the breakfast porridge and furious debates about Genesis and where were the dinosaurs on the Ark and all of that juicy stuff. But no, not a bit of it. This is not a spoiler, because readers shouldn鈥檛 have the misconception I had, so I will say that the kid as he grows up to be 15, 16, 17 just mentally disengages and drifts away from the Christian cult. He loves his monstrous father, he doesn鈥檛 want to hurt him. Why should he?
As an example of the monstrousness of the father, he has a fixed belief that physical ailments were inflicted directly by God to chastise the sufferer because of bad behaviour or spiritual deviance, 鈥渁nd not in relation to any physical cause鈥�. This guy who was a scrupulous naturalist believed something that normal people gave up believing in the 12th century. So when the kid gets a cold the father berates him for not cleaving his soul unto God鈥檚 grace more diligently, or some such nonsense.
As another example, when the son gets a job in London (unspecified but probably not as a song and dance man) the father bombards him with earnest beseeching imploring letters every day, literally, asking him for detailed account of the daily progress of his soul and the last conversations with God Almighty. The now teenaged Edmund regards each fresh letter at the breakfast table as the prisoner regards the thumb-screw.
One final word from the son about of the evangelical puritanism of his father 鈥� his father thought, naturally, that all non-Christians, all Catholics and 95% of all Protestants were condemned to Hell by the Almighty. Edmund comments :
He who was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain or distress of any person, however disagreeable, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension.
TRIGGER WARNING
I鈥檓 not myself much of a snowflake but even so I was pole-axed by one single very racist sentence in this 250 page book. I will not quote it as it would put you all off this book. It comes up when the kid is wondering if when he grows up he will be sent to Africa as a missionary. You can guess the rest. Should one sentence capsize an otherwise great book? Should modern editions remove it?
Read
October 25, 2019I was recommended to read this along with by a history teacher back at school, both are intrinsically Victorian books, with family and the Patriarch in the centre by the right hand side of GOD almighty, at the same time both are subversive, rebellious works. The Victorian corset in these books is too tight crushing the internal life of the central figures, the collar doesn't just chafe, but cuts the throat. Butler's book is fiction, Edmund Gosse's an autobiography.
Edmund Gosse's account of his childhood with it's particular focus on his relationship with his father Philip Henry Gosse is really a remarkable read, particularly if all Victorians are in your eyes indistinguishable on account of their starchiness.
Philip Gosse was the man who devised the theory that God created the world with all the appearances of being old as a way of reconciling his belief in the literal truth of the Bible and his work in the emerging natural sciences, he came up with this theory in an honest attempt to reconcile his love for the wonders of the natural world, the new science and his painfully literal belief in the word for word, if not comma for comma absolute truth of the Bible . He was a naturalist who illustrated his own works in watercolours. However after the death of his first wife from cancer he moved permanently to a community of Plymouth Brethren in Devon.
Edmund Gosse's memoir traces how as he grew up had an increasing desire to widen his outlook which ground against the Weltanschauung of his father causing the two conflict and ongoing unhappiness. To an extent Gosse the elder brought on the division between himself and his son in that he didn't want to send him to be schooled with other children of the Plymouth Brethren but to learn Latin and have an education more appropriate to a Victorian gentleman. Latin in a twist on its mythical Trojan roots was in itself a Trojan horse as even its grammar opened, courtesy of the Vocative case, the possibilities of non-Christian belief and Gosse the younger duly inspired does try to worship a chair. This has peculiar importance as the younger Gosse notices that the famously jealous God does not strike him down, render him neither lame nor leprous, and there isn't so much as a thunderous rumble in the sky.
ThePlymouth Brethren rather delight in their extreme inwardness and refusal to honour anything outside of the Bible, but as the younger Gosse grows, the firmer the spirit of Virgil guides the growing man, despite many difficult and painful circles out into the relative sunshine of London literary life - in which young women are not regarded as heroes for using their umbrellas to damage plaster casts of antique statutes.
A moving and often sad work, perhaps all the sadder because this account of their mutual unhappiness is the lasting memorial to two figures who were reasonably well known public figures within their own life times, I suppose given the curious continuation of such intense religious communities that similar memoirs will continue to be written, this one I hope retains through its message of the redemptive salvation possible through literature something particular to say.
Edmund Gosse's account of his childhood with it's particular focus on his relationship with his father Philip Henry Gosse is really a remarkable read, particularly if all Victorians are in your eyes indistinguishable on account of their starchiness.
Philip Gosse was the man who devised the theory that God created the world with all the appearances of being old as a way of reconciling his belief in the literal truth of the Bible and his work in the emerging natural sciences, he came up with this theory in an honest attempt to reconcile his love for the wonders of the natural world, the new science and his painfully literal belief in the word for word, if not comma for comma absolute truth of the Bible . He was a naturalist who illustrated his own works in watercolours. However after the death of his first wife from cancer he moved permanently to a community of Plymouth Brethren in Devon.
Edmund Gosse's memoir traces how as he grew up had an increasing desire to widen his outlook which ground against the Weltanschauung of his father causing the two conflict and ongoing unhappiness. To an extent Gosse the elder brought on the division between himself and his son in that he didn't want to send him to be schooled with other children of the Plymouth Brethren but to learn Latin and have an education more appropriate to a Victorian gentleman. Latin in a twist on its mythical Trojan roots was in itself a Trojan horse as even its grammar opened, courtesy of the Vocative case, the possibilities of non-Christian belief and Gosse the younger duly inspired does try to worship a chair. This has peculiar importance as the younger Gosse notices that the famously jealous God does not strike him down, render him neither lame nor leprous, and there isn't so much as a thunderous rumble in the sky.
ThePlymouth Brethren rather delight in their extreme inwardness and refusal to honour anything outside of the Bible, but as the younger Gosse grows, the firmer the spirit of Virgil guides the growing man, despite many difficult and painful circles out into the relative sunshine of London literary life - in which young women are not regarded as heroes for using their umbrellas to damage plaster casts of antique statutes.
A moving and often sad work, perhaps all the sadder because this account of their mutual unhappiness is the lasting memorial to two figures who were reasonably well known public figures within their own life times, I suppose given the curious continuation of such intense religious communities that similar memoirs will continue to be written, this one I hope retains through its message of the redemptive salvation possible through literature something particular to say.
August 6, 2020
Another book I discovered through listening to the wonderful Backlisted podcast. (21 September 1849 鈥� 16 May 1928) was an English poet, author and critic. He was strictly brought up in a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren, but broke away sharply from that faith.
is his account of his childhood and his gradual questioning of the fundamentalist religion of his parents. All of which might make this book sound like a misery memoir, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. This is a charming, fascinating and insightful account of Victorian life in the mid-18th century with numerous wonderful little details.
is subtitled 鈥淎 Study of Two Temperaments鈥� and this signals the approach of . He retained enormous respect and affection for his father but ultimately there was to be no way for the different personalities to be true to themselves and reconcile their differences.
It's beautifully written and, as I suggest, absolutely riveting, complete with numerous funny and idiosyncratic memories from a childhood spent both in Islington and, from around age 6, in Ilfracombe in Devon, then, as now, a small and sleepy backwater.
I listened to (1907) narrated by the peerless Geoffrey Palmer, and courtesy of Audible. Incredibly, this wonderful experience only set me back three British pounds. What a bargain. It's a wonderful book.
5/5
is his account of his childhood and his gradual questioning of the fundamentalist religion of his parents. All of which might make this book sound like a misery memoir, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. This is a charming, fascinating and insightful account of Victorian life in the mid-18th century with numerous wonderful little details.
is subtitled 鈥淎 Study of Two Temperaments鈥� and this signals the approach of . He retained enormous respect and affection for his father but ultimately there was to be no way for the different personalities to be true to themselves and reconcile their differences.
It's beautifully written and, as I suggest, absolutely riveting, complete with numerous funny and idiosyncratic memories from a childhood spent both in Islington and, from around age 6, in Ilfracombe in Devon, then, as now, a small and sleepy backwater.
I listened to (1907) narrated by the peerless Geoffrey Palmer, and courtesy of Audible. Incredibly, this wonderful experience only set me back three British pounds. What a bargain. It's a wonderful book.
5/5
February 2, 2017
This book was right up my alley in that my upbringing paralleled the author's - in spite of being over a century later. Like him, I was brought up in the Plymouth Brethren which, in 1960s-70s New Zealand, as in 1850s-60s England, meant a fixation on literalism, a consequent dryness and lack of imagination, and an almost disdainful rejection of "the world," which to a kid in particular was a blanket term for "everything fun." Seeing this aspect of my childhood before me in a form as dispassionately, yet sensitively and evocatively, retold as "Father and Son" made this a book that spoke so closely in my ear it was almost eerie. I'm not sure if it would have the same hold over anyone with a more liberal, or non-, religious upbringing, but as a narrative that is uncompromisingly frank in its revelations, maintains a calm balance between criticism and empathy, and describes a chasmic generation gap long before it became a catchphrase, this book is a lighthouse.
February 16, 2022
If science contradicts Creationism, well it's time to come up with another bizarre fundamentalist notion to counter it.
=======
While literary eggheads like to debate whether the writer, the son in the title, Edmund, is being fair to his father, Philip, or not, the reality is that, for good or ill, our parents have a profound effect on us. It lasts a lifetime, even if we are not always conscious of it.
This is the son鈥檚 account, during the Victorian Era, of his parents and the life he had with his father after his mother died. He makes it clear he is not trying to write a biography. These are his impressions and memories, to which he鈥檚 entitled.
This particular edition I bought, besides having a rather bad introduction, that should be skipped, also left off the author鈥檚 all-important subtitle: 鈥淎 Study of Two Temperaments鈥� which offers immediate insight into the perspective the reader will get in this story.
First of all, the author is quite critical of himself as a child. He is not setting himself as some kind of paragon in contrast to his parents or even a victim. In fact, he is quite affectionate toward his parents in this memoir. Secondly, the loss of his mother, to very painful breast cancer, was a huge blow to both the author and his father, that neither seemed to recover from.
His parents were Biblical literalists and members of a very strict Christian fundamentalist sect, The Plymouth Brethren (the progenitor of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S, including the elaborate apocalyptic schemes). His mother was a natural storyteller, which no doubt was useful in her evangelistic efforts but, as a child, she was scolded by her Calvinist nursemaid, who explained that all stories and fiction were in fact lies and, therefore, a sin. So there were to be no storybooks in the author鈥檚 house as a child, adding to his grey existence.
His father was an enthusiastic amateur naturalist and zoologist, who popularized the indoor aquarium, and who belonged to the British Museum and the Royal Society until he left London, with his son, for seaside Devon. He had been well connected in scientific circles.
The trouble for the father began, however, when Charles Lyell published his 鈥淧rinciples of Geology鈥� (1830鈥�1833) that delineated geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time. Philip's problem became more severe when Darwin developed his theory 鈥淭he Origin of Species.鈥� A friend of Darwin, Gosse got to read it well before it was published in 1859.
Philip immediately saw these ideas as a threat to the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, as well as the entire Bible. He concocted a strange scheme, which he called Omphalos (which reflected his belief that both Adam and Eve were created with navels), which in some fundamentalist circles today is referred to as 鈥渕ature creation.鈥�
No one was accepting of this scheme, neither his fellow scientists or Christians. Darwin stayed silent, but others were free with their mockery. Between the loss of his wife and this humiliation, Philip became quite melancholic, which cast a cloud over his son鈥檚 life.
This is a book roughly in the genre of 鈥淭he Way of All Flesh,鈥� by Samuel Butler and 鈥淓minent Victorians,鈥� by Lytton Strachey.
Here is more detail on Philip鈥檚 fantastical creationist theory鈥�.
=======
While literary eggheads like to debate whether the writer, the son in the title, Edmund, is being fair to his father, Philip, or not, the reality is that, for good or ill, our parents have a profound effect on us. It lasts a lifetime, even if we are not always conscious of it.
This is the son鈥檚 account, during the Victorian Era, of his parents and the life he had with his father after his mother died. He makes it clear he is not trying to write a biography. These are his impressions and memories, to which he鈥檚 entitled.
This particular edition I bought, besides having a rather bad introduction, that should be skipped, also left off the author鈥檚 all-important subtitle: 鈥淎 Study of Two Temperaments鈥� which offers immediate insight into the perspective the reader will get in this story.
First of all, the author is quite critical of himself as a child. He is not setting himself as some kind of paragon in contrast to his parents or even a victim. In fact, he is quite affectionate toward his parents in this memoir. Secondly, the loss of his mother, to very painful breast cancer, was a huge blow to both the author and his father, that neither seemed to recover from.
His parents were Biblical literalists and members of a very strict Christian fundamentalist sect, The Plymouth Brethren (the progenitor of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S, including the elaborate apocalyptic schemes). His mother was a natural storyteller, which no doubt was useful in her evangelistic efforts but, as a child, she was scolded by her Calvinist nursemaid, who explained that all stories and fiction were in fact lies and, therefore, a sin. So there were to be no storybooks in the author鈥檚 house as a child, adding to his grey existence.
His father was an enthusiastic amateur naturalist and zoologist, who popularized the indoor aquarium, and who belonged to the British Museum and the Royal Society until he left London, with his son, for seaside Devon. He had been well connected in scientific circles.
The trouble for the father began, however, when Charles Lyell published his 鈥淧rinciples of Geology鈥� (1830鈥�1833) that delineated geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time. Philip's problem became more severe when Darwin developed his theory 鈥淭he Origin of Species.鈥� A friend of Darwin, Gosse got to read it well before it was published in 1859.
Philip immediately saw these ideas as a threat to the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, as well as the entire Bible. He concocted a strange scheme, which he called Omphalos (which reflected his belief that both Adam and Eve were created with navels), which in some fundamentalist circles today is referred to as 鈥渕ature creation.鈥�
No one was accepting of this scheme, neither his fellow scientists or Christians. Darwin stayed silent, but others were free with their mockery. Between the loss of his wife and this humiliation, Philip became quite melancholic, which cast a cloud over his son鈥檚 life.
This is a book roughly in the genre of 鈥淭he Way of All Flesh,鈥� by Samuel Butler and 鈥淓minent Victorians,鈥� by Lytton Strachey.
Here is more detail on Philip鈥檚 fantastical creationist theory鈥�.
October 21, 2024
An emerging genre of memoirs describes the breaking away of a young person from the extreme and/or esoteric religious tradition he/she/they has been raised in. Three recent examples of this are Educated by Tara Westover (leaving an extreme Mormon sect), Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman (a Hasidic Jewish sect), and Unfollow, by Megan Phelps-Roper (a violently reactionary Baptist sect). (It seems fitting that some of these memoir titles describing breaking away from the learned religious traditions of their family should begin with the "un" prefix.) Father and Son, first published in 1907, can be regarded as a sort of grandparent to this genre.
In stunningly beautiful prose, Gosse 鈥� an English poet, author, and critic 鈥� describes his childhood in the 1850s and early 鈥�60s in an ultra-religious, fundamentalist Christian sect, the Plymouth Brethren. Both his parents were unwavering and outspoken adherents. Edmund was 7 years old, when his mother died at age 50 of cancer. His father and he then moved from London to rural Devon where his father led a congregation of devout followers (鈥渟aints鈥�). Gosse鈥檚 father was a well-known marine biologist and naturalist and, owing to his fundamentalist beliefs, an adversary of Charles Lyell (who proposed that the Earth was vastly older than any calculations based on the Bible) and Darwin. As his father鈥檚 religious life was all-encompassing, so Edmund鈥檚 early life was made to be as well. His childhood was almost wholly devoted to the study of and observance to a literal understanding of the Bible. He had required hours of daily Bible study, unending recitations of testaments of his faith, and virtually no contact with peers. In keeping with his father鈥檚 fieldwork and studies, Edmund was allowed to take an interest in the natural world, but his early education precluded many secular subjects. A particular prohibition was exposure to fictional prose of any variety 鈥� after all, such made-up descriptions of the world might lead one astray from the singular veracity of the Bible.
The father鈥檚 strong expectation was not only that Edmund would remain a strident member of the Brethren, but that he would be a shining leader of it. Owing to his precocious aptitude and apparent religious zeal, he was given the status of a full-fledged 鈥渟aint鈥� at age 10, an unprecedented young age for such a weighty status, and it came with even more burdensome religious responsibilities. That he might never assume this leadership for which he was being groomed was possible however, since the final ascension of the Plymouth Brethren saints to heaven was believed to be imminent (but salvation would not be given even to those sincere Christian souls who, however devout and full of faith, made the unfortunate intellectual mistake to subscribe to a different Protestant theology). Starting in his pre-teen years and intertwined with his sincerely effortful but never quite heartfelt faith, Edmund finds himself straying. He begins an internal, unspoken, and almost unconscious questioning of the inviolable religious tenets it is his responsibility to truly believe and uphold. Slowly and rather gently, he begins to discover literature, art, and the outside world, and emerge from the religious straitjacket imposed on him by his father.
From Wikipedia I learned that a recent study of Gosse鈥檚 father鈥檚 works* found that the author's portrait of his father is 鈥渞iddled with error, distortion, contradictions, unwarranted claims, misrepresentation, abuse of the written record, and unfamiliarity with the subject." Perhaps so, but despite his ultimate and definitive rejection of his father鈥檚 religious beliefs and parental methods, I was moved by the obvious continuing love and even respect the author, at age 60 or so, still had for his then deceased father (he died in 1888), despite their divergent ideas and, as Gosse puts it, temperaments.
Of course, I wouldn鈥檛 have turned to this (audio)book had I not had some hopes of finding it interesting, but it greatly exceeded all my expectations. I quite loved it. Gosse鈥檚 language is elegant. He conveys a wide range of complex feelings with eloquence, subtlety, and exquisite precision. He is also very funny. There were many moments when his dry wit had me laughing at loud. It probably didn鈥檛 hurt that the late Geoffrey Palmer was outstanding as the reader of this first-person narrative. I found myself experiencing the book as if the now elderly and scholarly Mr. Edmund Gosse was sitting comfortably in the House of Lords library, where he was in fact the librarian, and with great erudition, telling me about his unusual religious upbringing and finding his way out.
*D. Wertheimer, "A Son and His Father: Edmund Gosse's Comments and Portraits, 1875-1910," Nineteenth-Century Prose 48 [Spring/Fall 2021], 45-92
In stunningly beautiful prose, Gosse 鈥� an English poet, author, and critic 鈥� describes his childhood in the 1850s and early 鈥�60s in an ultra-religious, fundamentalist Christian sect, the Plymouth Brethren. Both his parents were unwavering and outspoken adherents. Edmund was 7 years old, when his mother died at age 50 of cancer. His father and he then moved from London to rural Devon where his father led a congregation of devout followers (鈥渟aints鈥�). Gosse鈥檚 father was a well-known marine biologist and naturalist and, owing to his fundamentalist beliefs, an adversary of Charles Lyell (who proposed that the Earth was vastly older than any calculations based on the Bible) and Darwin. As his father鈥檚 religious life was all-encompassing, so Edmund鈥檚 early life was made to be as well. His childhood was almost wholly devoted to the study of and observance to a literal understanding of the Bible. He had required hours of daily Bible study, unending recitations of testaments of his faith, and virtually no contact with peers. In keeping with his father鈥檚 fieldwork and studies, Edmund was allowed to take an interest in the natural world, but his early education precluded many secular subjects. A particular prohibition was exposure to fictional prose of any variety 鈥� after all, such made-up descriptions of the world might lead one astray from the singular veracity of the Bible.
The father鈥檚 strong expectation was not only that Edmund would remain a strident member of the Brethren, but that he would be a shining leader of it. Owing to his precocious aptitude and apparent religious zeal, he was given the status of a full-fledged 鈥渟aint鈥� at age 10, an unprecedented young age for such a weighty status, and it came with even more burdensome religious responsibilities. That he might never assume this leadership for which he was being groomed was possible however, since the final ascension of the Plymouth Brethren saints to heaven was believed to be imminent (but salvation would not be given even to those sincere Christian souls who, however devout and full of faith, made the unfortunate intellectual mistake to subscribe to a different Protestant theology). Starting in his pre-teen years and intertwined with his sincerely effortful but never quite heartfelt faith, Edmund finds himself straying. He begins an internal, unspoken, and almost unconscious questioning of the inviolable religious tenets it is his responsibility to truly believe and uphold. Slowly and rather gently, he begins to discover literature, art, and the outside world, and emerge from the religious straitjacket imposed on him by his father.
From Wikipedia I learned that a recent study of Gosse鈥檚 father鈥檚 works* found that the author's portrait of his father is 鈥渞iddled with error, distortion, contradictions, unwarranted claims, misrepresentation, abuse of the written record, and unfamiliarity with the subject." Perhaps so, but despite his ultimate and definitive rejection of his father鈥檚 religious beliefs and parental methods, I was moved by the obvious continuing love and even respect the author, at age 60 or so, still had for his then deceased father (he died in 1888), despite their divergent ideas and, as Gosse puts it, temperaments.
Of course, I wouldn鈥檛 have turned to this (audio)book had I not had some hopes of finding it interesting, but it greatly exceeded all my expectations. I quite loved it. Gosse鈥檚 language is elegant. He conveys a wide range of complex feelings with eloquence, subtlety, and exquisite precision. He is also very funny. There were many moments when his dry wit had me laughing at loud. It probably didn鈥檛 hurt that the late Geoffrey Palmer was outstanding as the reader of this first-person narrative. I found myself experiencing the book as if the now elderly and scholarly Mr. Edmund Gosse was sitting comfortably in the House of Lords library, where he was in fact the librarian, and with great erudition, telling me about his unusual religious upbringing and finding his way out.
*D. Wertheimer, "A Son and His Father: Edmund Gosse's Comments and Portraits, 1875-1910," Nineteenth-Century Prose 48 [Spring/Fall 2021], 45-92
July 24, 2017
(4.5) I can鈥檛 believe how long it鈥檚 taken me to get to this splendid evocation of 1850s鈥�60s family life in an extreme religious sect. I鈥檇 known about Edmund Gosse鈥檚 Father and Son (1907) for ages, and even owned a copy. Two of its early incidents 鈥� the son鈥檚 anticlimactic birth announcement in the father鈥檚 diary, and the throwing out of a forbidden Christmas pudding 鈥� were famously appropriated by Peter Carey for creating Oscar鈥檚 backstory in his Booker Prize-winning novel Oscar and Lucinda (1988), which I read in 2008 but didn鈥檛 much like. I was reminded of that literary debt when I worked for King鈥檚 College London鈥檚 library system and did a summer placement in the Special Collections department in 2011. For about a book in particular need of conservation, I chose Philip Henry Gosse鈥檚 Omphalos, his well-meaning but half-baked contribution to the Victorian science versus religion debate, and did a lot of secondary reading about the Gosses and their milieu.
The book鈥檚 subtitle, 鈥淎 Study of Two Temperaments,鈥� gives an idea of the angle Gosse takes here: this is not a straightforward biography (after all, he鈥檇 already written his father鈥檚 life story in 1890) or a comprehensive memoir, but a snapshot of his early years and an emotional unpicking of the personality clash that results from fundamentally different approaches to life. While Gosse 辫猫谤别 (1810鈥�88) was a devoted naturalist as well as a dogged believer in the literal truth of the Bible, even in adolescence his son (1849鈥�1928) was a literature aficionado and troubled skeptic. Philip Gosse was a minister with the Plymouth Brethren and married late, at 38; his wife was 42, very late for contemplating motherhood in those days. Like Thomas Hardy, the infant Edmund was presumed dead at birth and set aside, so it鈥檚 thanks to keen-eyed nurses that we have these two late Victorians鈥� significant literary output today.
Although his first word was 鈥渂ook鈥� and he could read by age four, Edmund was initially forbidden to read fiction. His mother quashed her own love of making up stories because she believed fiction was in some way sinful. It was always taken for granted that Edmund would follow his father into the ministry, and early on he had a sense of a split self: the external persona he put on to please his parents, and the deeper self that struggled to divine its purpose. He would cheekily test the limits of his familial faith by petitioning the Almighty for an expensive toy that he 鈥榥eeded鈥� and praying to a wooden chair to see if he鈥檇 be struck down for idolatry. The absurdity of such scenes is a welcome foil to the sadness of his mother鈥檚 death when Gosse was just seven. A year later the boy and his father moved from London to Devon, where both were captivated by the sea. (Indeed, if Philip Gosse is remembered as a natural historian today, it鈥檚 largely for his work on marine life 鈥� he discovered a new genus of sea anemones in 1859.) After Philip remarried, Edmund began attending a weekday boarding school and fell in love with literature, especially Shakespeare and the Romantic poets.
There鈥檚 a stretch of the book at about the two-thirds point that I found less compelling; much of it describes the other members of his father鈥檚 congregation (鈥渢he saints鈥�) and the tedium of Sundays. It鈥檚 also a shame there isn鈥檛 a brief afterword that continues the story through to his father鈥檚 death. But for much of its length this is a riveting investigation of how the conflict between reason and religion plays out both within individual souls and between family members. The purpose here is to chart the course that led him out of religion and made the supernatural rift between him and his father permanent by the time he was 15 or so, and Gosse fulfills that aim admirably. In doing so he maintains a delicately balanced tone: Although he vividly recreates funny moments from his childhood, he also makes clear-eyed, scathing assessments of a religion that is ostensibly based on love but all too often veers towards judgment instead:
Even so, this is a loving portrait, as well as a nuanced one, and a model of how to write family memoir. I enjoyed it immensely, and will no doubt read it again.
Further reading:
Originally published with images on my blog, .
The book鈥檚 subtitle, 鈥淎 Study of Two Temperaments,鈥� gives an idea of the angle Gosse takes here: this is not a straightforward biography (after all, he鈥檇 already written his father鈥檚 life story in 1890) or a comprehensive memoir, but a snapshot of his early years and an emotional unpicking of the personality clash that results from fundamentally different approaches to life. While Gosse 辫猫谤别 (1810鈥�88) was a devoted naturalist as well as a dogged believer in the literal truth of the Bible, even in adolescence his son (1849鈥�1928) was a literature aficionado and troubled skeptic. Philip Gosse was a minister with the Plymouth Brethren and married late, at 38; his wife was 42, very late for contemplating motherhood in those days. Like Thomas Hardy, the infant Edmund was presumed dead at birth and set aside, so it鈥檚 thanks to keen-eyed nurses that we have these two late Victorians鈥� significant literary output today.
Although his first word was 鈥渂ook鈥� and he could read by age four, Edmund was initially forbidden to read fiction. His mother quashed her own love of making up stories because she believed fiction was in some way sinful. It was always taken for granted that Edmund would follow his father into the ministry, and early on he had a sense of a split self: the external persona he put on to please his parents, and the deeper self that struggled to divine its purpose. He would cheekily test the limits of his familial faith by petitioning the Almighty for an expensive toy that he 鈥榥eeded鈥� and praying to a wooden chair to see if he鈥檇 be struck down for idolatry. The absurdity of such scenes is a welcome foil to the sadness of his mother鈥檚 death when Gosse was just seven. A year later the boy and his father moved from London to Devon, where both were captivated by the sea. (Indeed, if Philip Gosse is remembered as a natural historian today, it鈥檚 largely for his work on marine life 鈥� he discovered a new genus of sea anemones in 1859.) After Philip remarried, Edmund began attending a weekday boarding school and fell in love with literature, especially Shakespeare and the Romantic poets.
There鈥檚 a stretch of the book at about the two-thirds point that I found less compelling; much of it describes the other members of his father鈥檚 congregation (鈥渢he saints鈥�) and the tedium of Sundays. It鈥檚 also a shame there isn鈥檛 a brief afterword that continues the story through to his father鈥檚 death. But for much of its length this is a riveting investigation of how the conflict between reason and religion plays out both within individual souls and between family members. The purpose here is to chart the course that led him out of religion and made the supernatural rift between him and his father permanent by the time he was 15 or so, and Gosse fulfills that aim admirably. In doing so he maintains a delicately balanced tone: Although he vividly recreates funny moments from his childhood, he also makes clear-eyed, scathing assessments of a religion that is ostensibly based on love but all too often veers towards judgment instead:
Here was perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect abnegation; yet here was also narrowness, isolation, an absence of perspective, let it be boldly admitted, an absence of humanity. And there was a curious mixture of humbleness and arrogance; entire resignation to the will of God and not less entire disdain of the judgment and opinion of God.
[H]e allowed the turbid volume of superstition to drown the delicate stream of reason.
He who was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain or distress of any person, however disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension.
Even so, this is a loving portrait, as well as a nuanced one, and a model of how to write family memoir. I enjoyed it immensely, and will no doubt read it again.
Further reading:
Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810鈥�1888 by Ann Thwaite
In the Days of Rain, Rebecca Stott鈥檚 memoir of growing up in the Plymouth Brethren in the 1960s
Originally published with images on my blog, .
September 23, 2020
An account of Edmund Gosse鈥檚 journey from childhood to adulthood and his struggle with his conscience being brought up by his father Philip a Plymouth Brethren. It is a chronicle of religious fanaticism in the Victorian era in the 1860s.
The death of his mother when he was a child created a vacuum and his father became more fanatical in indoctrination of his son into his religious beliefs. The strange thing I found was his fathers his occupation as a marine zoologist and his struggle to reject Darwinism and evolution. Genesis and geology do not mix. How Edmund survived the 24-7 day to day life living with the dogma and fanaticism is a miracle in itself.
I loved how Peter Carey based the character of Oscar on Lucinda. The Man Booker prize winning novel Oscar and Lucinda describes Oscar鈥檚 childhood and upbringing with his father as a Plymouth Brethren. Obviously it is not exact with major alterations with a Church of England vicar helping Oscar and his gambling problem. However, the childhood is echoed in the description of collecting marine specimens on the seashore.
The story suddenly ends when Edmund reaches the age of 21 where he either thinks for himself or accepts his fathers strong fanatical religious beliefs. I will leave you to find out what he chooses.
The death of his mother when he was a child created a vacuum and his father became more fanatical in indoctrination of his son into his religious beliefs. The strange thing I found was his fathers his occupation as a marine zoologist and his struggle to reject Darwinism and evolution. Genesis and geology do not mix. How Edmund survived the 24-7 day to day life living with the dogma and fanaticism is a miracle in itself.
I loved how Peter Carey based the character of Oscar on Lucinda. The Man Booker prize winning novel Oscar and Lucinda describes Oscar鈥檚 childhood and upbringing with his father as a Plymouth Brethren. Obviously it is not exact with major alterations with a Church of England vicar helping Oscar and his gambling problem. However, the childhood is echoed in the description of collecting marine specimens on the seashore.
The story suddenly ends when Edmund reaches the age of 21 where he either thinks for himself or accepts his fathers strong fanatical religious beliefs. I will leave you to find out what he chooses.
November 29, 2011
And he said we must judge not, lest we ourselves bejudged. I had just enough tact to let that pass, but I was quite aware that our whole system was one of judging, and that we had no intention whatever of being judged ourselves. Yet even at the age of eleven one sees that on certain occasions to press home the truth is not convenient.
The dripping sarcasm of the line above is an apt characterization of this delightful memoir of the relationship between poet Edmund Gosse and his father Philip. Although historians have subsequently challenged the factual accuracy of Gosse's memory and portrayal of his young life, it nevertheless offers a rather insightful peek into the tragedy of the loss of his mother, the scandal of his father's "greatest work" and on the impact of their temperaments and religious views in creating a tension of love and passive-aggression between them. At the personal level, it documents their psychological, personal and spiritual lives. At the broader level, it provides a wonderful window into the social, scientific, and religious realities of that time and place.
The dripping sarcasm of the line above is an apt characterization of this delightful memoir of the relationship between poet Edmund Gosse and his father Philip. Although historians have subsequently challenged the factual accuracy of Gosse's memory and portrayal of his young life, it nevertheless offers a rather insightful peek into the tragedy of the loss of his mother, the scandal of his father's "greatest work" and on the impact of their temperaments and religious views in creating a tension of love and passive-aggression between them. At the personal level, it documents their psychological, personal and spiritual lives. At the broader level, it provides a wonderful window into the social, scientific, and religious realities of that time and place.
October 27, 2008
One of the best books about intellectual freedom that I have ever read. Gosse manages to make his father a deeply sympathetic and tragically sad character (and himself a real, selfish, immature boy) while clearly showing how oppressive and ridiculous puritanism can be. When young Edmund discovers Dickens and Shakespeare it's like coming up for air after deep submersion.
March 3, 2025
Early into Father and Son, I realized I would need to listen with the book in hand as well. It was impossible for me to proceed without both: the audiobook is read by Geoffrey Palmer and his voice is nothing short of magnificent鈥攕onorous, clear, ringing with emotion to the precise degree. Gosse鈥檚 writing is also magnificent鈥攁nalytical, deeply felt, deeply attentive, generous of spirit, with a wonderful music of language.
Edmund Gosse (1849-1928) writes of his childhood, raised by parents who led a congregation of Plymouth Brethren, an Evangelical sect that believed that the text of the Bible was the sole guide to Christian belief and practice. Gosse subtitled his book A Study of Two Temperaments. In essence, a beloved only child is raised in a strict and narrow Christian household, where faith is not the main thing but the only thing. I鈥檝e read that the book describes a monstrous father, but that is not accurate. The harm done is of a much more ambiguous nature. Edmund is the cosseted captive of his father, fed a steady diet of religion with little room for anything else. And yet, slowly, he begins to discover his own mind, both what draws him and what repels him. This is not a tale of soul murder, nor of cruelty, indifference. The relation between father and son is not just loving but treasuring, if also stifling. And what emerges as Gosse tells the story of growing to the age of about 21, is both an intellectual and psychological autobiography. He is not only exploring his mind鈥檚 education, but the dynamics of finding and freeing his mind from his father鈥檚 radically limited perspective. This he must do without jeopardizing the connection with his father while still finding the few paths that allow him to enlarge his own mental landscape. It is amazing that he succeeded in this effort. Such a constraining home environment is especially tricky, since the love and pleasure taken in him needs to be constantly evaded without being broken or destroyed. I found Gosse鈥檚 portrayal of the process and its vicissitudes to be riveting, thrilling, beautiful and universal. I couldn鈥檛 put it down.
Subsequently, I鈥檝e read that Gosse may have embellished reality. Well maybe. But I don鈥檛 think that matters, because the story he tells has a value and truth that goes well beyond the lives of the long dead protagonists. So I鈥檇 also call the book one of contemporary relevance for anyone fascinated by the growth of a self in less than ideal circumstances.
Edmund Gosse (1849-1928) writes of his childhood, raised by parents who led a congregation of Plymouth Brethren, an Evangelical sect that believed that the text of the Bible was the sole guide to Christian belief and practice. Gosse subtitled his book A Study of Two Temperaments. In essence, a beloved only child is raised in a strict and narrow Christian household, where faith is not the main thing but the only thing. I鈥檝e read that the book describes a monstrous father, but that is not accurate. The harm done is of a much more ambiguous nature. Edmund is the cosseted captive of his father, fed a steady diet of religion with little room for anything else. And yet, slowly, he begins to discover his own mind, both what draws him and what repels him. This is not a tale of soul murder, nor of cruelty, indifference. The relation between father and son is not just loving but treasuring, if also stifling. And what emerges as Gosse tells the story of growing to the age of about 21, is both an intellectual and psychological autobiography. He is not only exploring his mind鈥檚 education, but the dynamics of finding and freeing his mind from his father鈥檚 radically limited perspective. This he must do without jeopardizing the connection with his father while still finding the few paths that allow him to enlarge his own mental landscape. It is amazing that he succeeded in this effort. Such a constraining home environment is especially tricky, since the love and pleasure taken in him needs to be constantly evaded without being broken or destroyed. I found Gosse鈥檚 portrayal of the process and its vicissitudes to be riveting, thrilling, beautiful and universal. I couldn鈥檛 put it down.
Subsequently, I鈥檝e read that Gosse may have embellished reality. Well maybe. But I don鈥檛 think that matters, because the story he tells has a value and truth that goes well beyond the lives of the long dead protagonists. So I鈥檇 also call the book one of contemporary relevance for anyone fascinated by the growth of a self in less than ideal circumstances.
October 17, 2016
Edited by Peter Abbs
Gosse's Life and Works and Chronology
Introduction
FATHER AND SON
Notes
Select Bibliography
Published 1907
Father = Philip Gosse, Marine Zoologist and Plymouth Brother. If he was living today we'd probably label him a Christian Fundamentalist (and even a child abuser). Edmund Gosse, an only child, was brought up in an erstwhile loving home whilst required to wear a religious straitjacket and undergo constant 'spiritual' interrogation. That he remained sane, managed to 鈥渆scape鈥� and develop in a contrary direction to his father, becoming a poet, writer, biographer, literary critic and academic is extraordinary.
Father and Son is his most popular work, probably the only one now in print. I found it a slog much of the time though and his wordy style didn't help. That said, there are some very memorable passages throughout the book. Writing of one of the 'saints', as the individuals forming the congregation of Plymouth Bretheren, presided over by Philip Gosse, their preacher, are referred to:
鈥淚 do not know exactly what she (Mrs Paget) wanted my father to do with me; perhaps she did not know herself; she was meddlesome, ignorant and fanatical, and she liked to fancy that she was exercising influence. But the wonderful, the inexplicable thing is that my Father, - who with all his limitations was so distinguished and high minded, - should listen to her for a moment, and still more wonderful is it that he really allowed her, grim vixen that she was, to disturb his plans and retard his purposes. 鈥�.My Father found himself brought face to face at last, not with a disciple, but with a trained expert in his own peculiar scheme of religion. At every point she was armed with arguments the source of which he knew and the validity of which he recognised. He trembled before Mrs Paget as a man in a dream may tremble before a parody of his own central self, and he could not blame her without laying himself open somewhere to censure.
But my stepmother's instincts were more primitive and her actions less wire-drawn than my Father's. She disliked Mrs Paget as much as one earnest believer can bring herself to dislike a sister in the Lord. My stepmother had quietly devoted herself to what she thought the best way of bringing me up, and she did not propose now to be thwarted by the wife of a lunatic Baptist鈥�.
Interesting but scary portrayal of this 19th century childhood, helped me put into perspective my own childhood. Perhaps it wasn't so bad after all!
Gosse's Life and Works and Chronology
Introduction
FATHER AND SON
Notes
Select Bibliography
Published 1907
Father = Philip Gosse, Marine Zoologist and Plymouth Brother. If he was living today we'd probably label him a Christian Fundamentalist (and even a child abuser). Edmund Gosse, an only child, was brought up in an erstwhile loving home whilst required to wear a religious straitjacket and undergo constant 'spiritual' interrogation. That he remained sane, managed to 鈥渆scape鈥� and develop in a contrary direction to his father, becoming a poet, writer, biographer, literary critic and academic is extraordinary.
Father and Son is his most popular work, probably the only one now in print. I found it a slog much of the time though and his wordy style didn't help. That said, there are some very memorable passages throughout the book. Writing of one of the 'saints', as the individuals forming the congregation of Plymouth Bretheren, presided over by Philip Gosse, their preacher, are referred to:
鈥淚 do not know exactly what she (Mrs Paget) wanted my father to do with me; perhaps she did not know herself; she was meddlesome, ignorant and fanatical, and she liked to fancy that she was exercising influence. But the wonderful, the inexplicable thing is that my Father, - who with all his limitations was so distinguished and high minded, - should listen to her for a moment, and still more wonderful is it that he really allowed her, grim vixen that she was, to disturb his plans and retard his purposes. 鈥�.My Father found himself brought face to face at last, not with a disciple, but with a trained expert in his own peculiar scheme of religion. At every point she was armed with arguments the source of which he knew and the validity of which he recognised. He trembled before Mrs Paget as a man in a dream may tremble before a parody of his own central self, and he could not blame her without laying himself open somewhere to censure.
But my stepmother's instincts were more primitive and her actions less wire-drawn than my Father's. She disliked Mrs Paget as much as one earnest believer can bring herself to dislike a sister in the Lord. My stepmother had quietly devoted herself to what she thought the best way of bringing me up, and she did not propose now to be thwarted by the wife of a lunatic Baptist鈥�.
Interesting but scary portrayal of this 19th century childhood, helped me put into perspective my own childhood. Perhaps it wasn't so bad after all!
September 26, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
July 26, 2016I don't know if I liked this book so much because it is good or simply because its theme is of such importance to me. Edmund Gosse writes about his upbringing in a deeply religious home, and the consequences it has for the relationship he has with his father. It is a powerful and sad exploration of a desolate childhood, limited by unbearable constraints and expectations in the name of the Holy.
It is impossible for me to talk about this book without trailing off with my own thoughts on faith and upbringing, so instead I want to share some passages that struck me, either for their poignancy, or their sheer power:
"And he said we must judge not, lest we ourselves be judged. I had enough tact to let that pass, but I was quite aware that our whole system was one of judging, and that we had no intention whatever of being judged ourselves."
"My little faults of conduct, too, assumed shapes of terrible importance, since they proceeded from one so signally enlightened. My father was never tired of reminding me that, now that I was a professing Christian, I must remember, in everything I did, that I was an example to others. "
"He who was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain or distress of any person, however disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension."
And the most beautifully passionate of them all:
"Let me speak plainly. After my long experience, after my patience and forbearance, I have surely the right to protest against the untruth (would that I could apply to it any other word!) that evangelical religion, or any religion in violent form, is wholesome or valuable or desirable adjunct to human life. It divides the heart from heart. It sets up a vain, chimerical ideal, in the barren pursuit of which all tender, indulgent affections, all the genial play of life, all the exquisite pleasures and soft resignations of the body, all that enlarges and calms the soul, are exchanged for what is harsh and void and negative. It encourages a stern and ignorant spirit of condemnations; it throws altogether out of gear the healthy movement of the conscience; it invents virtues which are sterile and cruel; it invents sins which are no sins at all, but which darken the heaven of innocent joy with futile clouds of remorse."
It is impossible for me to talk about this book without trailing off with my own thoughts on faith and upbringing, so instead I want to share some passages that struck me, either for their poignancy, or their sheer power:
"And he said we must judge not, lest we ourselves be judged. I had enough tact to let that pass, but I was quite aware that our whole system was one of judging, and that we had no intention whatever of being judged ourselves."
"My little faults of conduct, too, assumed shapes of terrible importance, since they proceeded from one so signally enlightened. My father was never tired of reminding me that, now that I was a professing Christian, I must remember, in everything I did, that I was an example to others. "
"He who was so tender-hearted that he could not bear to witness the pain or distress of any person, however disagreeable or undeserving, was quite acquiescent in believing that God would punish human beings, in millions, for ever, for a purely intellectual error of comprehension."
And the most beautifully passionate of them all:
"Let me speak plainly. After my long experience, after my patience and forbearance, I have surely the right to protest against the untruth (would that I could apply to it any other word!) that evangelical religion, or any religion in violent form, is wholesome or valuable or desirable adjunct to human life. It divides the heart from heart. It sets up a vain, chimerical ideal, in the barren pursuit of which all tender, indulgent affections, all the genial play of life, all the exquisite pleasures and soft resignations of the body, all that enlarges and calms the soul, are exchanged for what is harsh and void and negative. It encourages a stern and ignorant spirit of condemnations; it throws altogether out of gear the healthy movement of the conscience; it invents virtues which are sterile and cruel; it invents sins which are no sins at all, but which darken the heaven of innocent joy with futile clouds of remorse."
December 29, 2023
Oh. Kind of a mid-19th century coming of age novel of a childhood in the English genteel poor in a very strict (nutty) Protestant sect.
This beautifully told autobiography (published in 1907) by English poet and literary critic Edmund Gosse focuses primarily on the relationship between the extremely religious father (also a scientist who rejects new evolutionary theories) and his increasingly not-so religious son. Unfortunately, his mom died a very painful death from breast cancer when he was only seven (just before anesthesia was discovered).
So, about the dad. He isn't a tyrant per se but a religious extremist "Certain senses were absent in him; I think that, with all his justice, he had no conception of the importance of liberty; with all his intelligence, the boundaries of the atmosphere in which his mind could think at all were always close about him; with all his faith in the Word of God, he had no confidence in the Divine Benevolence; and with all his passionate piety, he habitually mistook fear for love".
As in all coming of age stories, there's a grand summer, here it's the summer of 1861 and the discovery of the previously outlawed secular joy of reading fiction (the young reader being 'in fits of hilarity' over Dickens's Mr Pickwick, etc.).
Thus follows a beautiful tale of two temperaments. Dad remaining a religious fanatic, the son's mental horizon widening by the minute until the ultimate breaking free "(...) and, as respectfully as he could, without parade or remonstrance, he took a human being鈥檚 privilege to fashion his inner life for himself" 鉂わ笍
Side note: You know this recent Tik Tok trend where they asked dudes how often they think about the Roman Empire? Well, ask me about how often I think about the 19th century (a lot), although in a mostly made-up, child-like manner as, sadly, my knowledge of history is so very, very patchy. Given my thing for Russian classics, in my idea of the 19th century everyone is part of the impoverished aristocracy (as a self-proclaimed Marxist!馃) and eternally heart-broken.
So, I've very much enjoyed this opportunity to seek temporary mental refuge in Victorian Britain.
This beautifully told autobiography (published in 1907) by English poet and literary critic Edmund Gosse focuses primarily on the relationship between the extremely religious father (also a scientist who rejects new evolutionary theories) and his increasingly not-so religious son. Unfortunately, his mom died a very painful death from breast cancer when he was only seven (just before anesthesia was discovered).
So, about the dad. He isn't a tyrant per se but a religious extremist "Certain senses were absent in him; I think that, with all his justice, he had no conception of the importance of liberty; with all his intelligence, the boundaries of the atmosphere in which his mind could think at all were always close about him; with all his faith in the Word of God, he had no confidence in the Divine Benevolence; and with all his passionate piety, he habitually mistook fear for love".
As in all coming of age stories, there's a grand summer, here it's the summer of 1861 and the discovery of the previously outlawed secular joy of reading fiction (the young reader being 'in fits of hilarity' over Dickens's Mr Pickwick, etc.).
Thus follows a beautiful tale of two temperaments. Dad remaining a religious fanatic, the son's mental horizon widening by the minute until the ultimate breaking free "(...) and, as respectfully as he could, without parade or remonstrance, he took a human being鈥檚 privilege to fashion his inner life for himself" 鉂わ笍
Side note: You know this recent Tik Tok trend where they asked dudes how often they think about the Roman Empire? Well, ask me about how often I think about the 19th century (a lot), although in a mostly made-up, child-like manner as, sadly, my knowledge of history is so very, very patchy. Given my thing for Russian classics, in my idea of the 19th century everyone is part of the impoverished aristocracy (as a self-proclaimed Marxist!馃) and eternally heart-broken.
So, I've very much enjoyed this opportunity to seek temporary mental refuge in Victorian Britain.
March 9, 2008
Published anonymously in 1907, when Gosse was 58, "Father and Son" recounts his childhood among the Plymouth Brethren, centering largely, after his mother's early death, on his relation with pere Philip Henry Gosse, English naturalist and author of "Omphalos: an Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot," in which is formulated what has come to be known as the 'omphalos hypothesis,' reconciling the fossil record to revelation by supposing it too to having been created ex nihilo.
(Though it should be remembered that, as even Russell once evidently put it, "...there is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that 'remembered' a wholly unreal past".)
Philip Henry Gosse's "Omphalos" was published in 1857 (two years prior to "Origin of Species"), when Edmund was 8 years old. Edmund writes:
"In the course of that dismal winter, as the post began to bring in private letters, few and chilly, and public reviews, many and scornful, my Father looked in vain for the approval of the churches, and in vain for the acquiescence of the scientific societies, and in vain for the gratitude of those 'thousands of thinking persons', which he had rashly assured himself of receiving. As his reconciliation of Scripture statements and geological deductions was welcomed nowhere, as Darwin continued silent, and the youthful Huxley was scornful, and even Charles Kingsley, from whom my Father had expected the most instant appreciation, wrote that he could not 'give up the painful and slow conclusion of five and twenty years' study of geology, and believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie',--as all this happened or failed to happen, a gloom, cold and dismal, descended upon our morning teacups. It was what the poets mean by an 'inspissated' gloom; it thickened day by day, as hope and self-confidence evaporated in thin clouds of disappointment. My Father was not prepared for such a fate. He had been the spoiled darling of the public, the constant favourite of the press, and now, like the dark angels of old,
so huge a rout
Encumbered him with ruin.
He could not recover from amazement at having offended everybody by an enterprise which had been undertaken in the cause of universal reconciliation."
"Father and Son" is offered, as Gosse notes in his Preface, as "...a document, as a record of educational and religious conditions which, having passed away, will never return. In this respect, as the diagnosis of a dying Puritanism, it is hoped that the narrative will not be altogether without significance."
A hundred years on we see still how slowly the landscape changes (thus far at least) and how the terrors and wonders suffusing Gosse鈥檚 world suffuse it yet.
Full "Father and Son" text available at:
February 6, 2022
I delighted in this book. Gosse writes with warmth and humour about his spiritually trialsome early years, coming 鈥� in the end 鈥� to argue against the Evangelism and Puritanism of the mid-nineteenth century, which he embodies in his portrayal of his father, Philip Henry Gosse (who, incidentally, was a very fine scientific artist and quite handsome). This is an enjoyable memoir with tumultuous undertones. Indeed, Peter Abbs' introduction shows how Gosse remains in a tug-of-war between the 'two temperaments' of the title, often upholding Victorian propriety by qualifying his anxieties and harsher observations with caveats and pre-emptive defences. Gosse is never quite able to write his fiery polemic for a new, less stuffy kind of spiritual fulfilment (even if he hints at it). Father and Son sits alongside Strachey's Eminent Victorians as a non-fiction exemplar of the 'transition' to modernism.
January 29, 2011
This book has been described as the first psychological biography. An only child, Gosse is raised in a Protestant sect, The Plymouth Bretheren, which is led by his father, a naturalist and artist. While strict, his parents dote on him, but from early on he questions their beliefs. I loved the scene when he's seven or so, after hearing the prohibition against praying to idols, he secretly puts a chair on a table and prays to it. And nothing happens. His mother, a poet, dies before he is ten. When The Origin of Species is published his father, as a scientist, is torn, but he chooses his religion and his career falters. The son grows up to be a poet, writer, and critic and is friends with Stevenson, Hardy, and Tennyson, among others. An honest and loving portrait of an strange childhood.
October 15, 2017
When I was offered the Opportunity to go to Adelaide University to study Two Subjects in the Arts of
My Own Choice, I should have JUMPED at it; but unfortunately, as far as I was concerned, it meant
NOT doing my Second Year of Philosophy, a subject I was absolutely WRAPPED IN. I mentioned My Dilemma in a letter to my Auntie Rosie. She settled it with her: "Whenever Opportunity knocks, TAKE IT!!!" I didn't know then that she had made a decision between marrying her current Sydney Beau and a Man-On-The-Land. Being a Social Climber she had taken the Man-On-The-Land and saw her Ex- whenever she came to Sydney!!
So I went to Adelaide Uni to study English Lit. and History.
Unfortunately or Not, the Reformation History I chose to Take, too soon had me discovering that I was Firmly on the side of Martin Luther in his dispute with the Catholic Church; and in English Lit. I was to read a book I never knew existed - "Father and Son" by Edmund Gosse, a true tale of how a young boy's Faith was gradually eroded by his Father's strict adherence to the Plymouth Brethren.
As I was studying to be a Priest, and in My Philosophy Studies, having already been swept away by the line: "The Gods don't create Mankind. It is Mankind who creates his Gods."- this Double Dose I was taking at Adelaide University was certainly stirring the embers, my embers!!!
When I enrolled at Sydney University some years later as an atheist, this time to continue with my Beloved Philosophy and with the History and English still in tow, I added Biblical Studies as well.
This latter was run by Radical Believers, such as Barbara Thiring, who became intent on ALWAYS reading out my essays. The course was fairly close to my Biblical Studies in the Monastery.
So I easily topped the Bib. Studies Class here, along with being in the first Ten places in the Philosophy.
During our Philosophy Lectures, the lecturer was getting a bit pissed off, when he suddenly declared "Who has read Edmund Gosse's "Father and Son?" I shot up my hand, to suddenly find it was a very Lone Hand !!! The lecturer glared round and then made another declaration.:
"Thank God there is SOMEONE here WHO IS EDUCATED !!!!!"
Despite not feeling THAT educated, no one came near me after that.
But I was always to LOVE Edmund Gosse, Bib Studies, History, Philosophy and English Lit.
May 11, 2013
I loved this memoir, written by the son, who grew up in Devonshire in the latter half of the 19th century. He loved his father, a scientist who was also something of a religious fanatic, a member of the Calvinistic Plymouth Brethren. By the time he was 19, the son was through with religion, but remained on affectionate terms with his narrow-minded dad. He tells their story with honesty and humor.
October 17, 2011
Families, eh. What binds, and what divides. This is a wonderful account of the author as a solitary child, cut off from reality by a strict religion. But what makes it so enthralling for me is the picture he paints of how an intelligent child can for so long squeeze himself into the mould his parents make. It's not at all a stuffy classic, but an absolute must-read.
December 19, 2007
This is probably my favorite book from the Victorian era.
September 14, 2015
I had this book recommended to me by a friend; in fact, she was buying extra copies and giving them away. I can't say it had that effect on me, however.
What an odd book! Gosse was the sun of Philip Henry Gosse, who was a famous zoologist in the 19th century, around the time of Darwin. He was also a Puritan Christian, as was his wife - the mother of Edmund: she died of breast cancer when Edmund was still under ten years old. Philip married again, a few years later.
The book is supposedly the factual memoirs of Gosse as a child, and of his relationship with his father, who, according to the book, was virtually a recluse, and a very rigid Christian. (Gosse's mother was as puritanical as her husband, according to Gosse junior.) The book claims to be fact, but later biographers of both father and son have found a good deal of fiction in the writing. It's very much the view of a man who has cast his parents aside along with his religion, but in writing about it he colours the characters of his parents - his father in particular - in such a way as to make the reader recoil from them. Knowing that Gosse's writing is more biased than not is quite helpful in reading the book: you see how he shows himself as the one treated somewhat unjustly, when in fact this was apparently less than the truth. He also, perhaps unwittingly, shows himself as rather pompous and quite class conscious. Those who are lower than him in the social scale are written about in such a way as to show that Gosse despises them - it's not just what they do, it's how the author describes them. For example, in describing John Brooks, a poor man who doesn't do the right thing according to Gosse's lights: John Brooks was a heavy dirty man, with a pock-marked face and two left legs... I'm not sure how Brooks manages to have two left legs, but doesn't it immediately make you feel he's something of a monster?
I got to a point with the book where I thought I wouldn't finish it, but I did. However, Gosse lost my sympathy well before the end!
What an odd book! Gosse was the sun of Philip Henry Gosse, who was a famous zoologist in the 19th century, around the time of Darwin. He was also a Puritan Christian, as was his wife - the mother of Edmund: she died of breast cancer when Edmund was still under ten years old. Philip married again, a few years later.
The book is supposedly the factual memoirs of Gosse as a child, and of his relationship with his father, who, according to the book, was virtually a recluse, and a very rigid Christian. (Gosse's mother was as puritanical as her husband, according to Gosse junior.) The book claims to be fact, but later biographers of both father and son have found a good deal of fiction in the writing. It's very much the view of a man who has cast his parents aside along with his religion, but in writing about it he colours the characters of his parents - his father in particular - in such a way as to make the reader recoil from them. Knowing that Gosse's writing is more biased than not is quite helpful in reading the book: you see how he shows himself as the one treated somewhat unjustly, when in fact this was apparently less than the truth. He also, perhaps unwittingly, shows himself as rather pompous and quite class conscious. Those who are lower than him in the social scale are written about in such a way as to show that Gosse despises them - it's not just what they do, it's how the author describes them. For example, in describing John Brooks, a poor man who doesn't do the right thing according to Gosse's lights: John Brooks was a heavy dirty man, with a pock-marked face and two left legs... I'm not sure how Brooks manages to have two left legs, but doesn't it immediately make you feel he's something of a monster?
I got to a point with the book where I thought I wouldn't finish it, but I did. However, Gosse lost my sympathy well before the end!
November 4, 2014
*I got turned on to this book when I found it on one of Nick Hornby's list of faves*
The book fails to achieve what it hoped to: to find the seeds of Gosse's later rebellion in his early youth. We spend about two-thirds of the book there, looking. Gosse keeps plodding on, expecting to find the answer himself. But we don't. We also don't get a convincing portrait of the father. How did he come to Botany, what teacher led him to that worldly path, what was the joy he found there? Gosse sr. came from money, what was his class-consciousness? What was is that led his mother and father to convert to the Plymouth Brethren, and descend the social ladder. Gosse sees himself and his family as genteel - needs discussion. What kind of earnest Christianity survived Gosse's youthful rebellion?
I blame some of the author's inability to address central questions on his elaborate and academic style. His long sentences, aiming to impress us, actually get in the way of his own search for truth and our desire to understand his path.
Here is an example of one of the many sentences I was forced to read several times: "In the midst of this, materially, the hardest moment of their lives, when I was nine years old, and there was a question of our leaving London, my mother recorded in her secret notes:"
The book fails to achieve what it hoped to: to find the seeds of Gosse's later rebellion in his early youth. We spend about two-thirds of the book there, looking. Gosse keeps plodding on, expecting to find the answer himself. But we don't. We also don't get a convincing portrait of the father. How did he come to Botany, what teacher led him to that worldly path, what was the joy he found there? Gosse sr. came from money, what was his class-consciousness? What was is that led his mother and father to convert to the Plymouth Brethren, and descend the social ladder. Gosse sees himself and his family as genteel - needs discussion. What kind of earnest Christianity survived Gosse's youthful rebellion?
I blame some of the author's inability to address central questions on his elaborate and academic style. His long sentences, aiming to impress us, actually get in the way of his own search for truth and our desire to understand his path.
Here is an example of one of the many sentences I was forced to read several times: "In the midst of this, materially, the hardest moment of their lives, when I was nine years old, and there was a question of our leaving London, my mother recorded in her secret notes:"
September 26, 2014
From BBC Radio 4 - Extra Debut:
Memoir of Edmund Gosse's Victorian childhood, raised in a strictly non-conformist Plymouth Brethren home. Stars Derek Jacobi and Roger Allam.
Free download available at .
I liked this book even if I am not a big fan of christian fiction.
Memoir of Edmund Gosse's Victorian childhood, raised in a strictly non-conformist Plymouth Brethren home. Stars Derek Jacobi and Roger Allam.
Free download available at .
I liked this book even if I am not a big fan of christian fiction.
November 4, 2016
Beautifully written, and a wonderful document about the late nineteenth century clash between 'religion' and 'science.' Also, Gosse goes out of his way to present his father as a decent human being, not something that can be said about the other books in this tradition.
November 8, 2016
Goodness that was dull.
September 7, 2024
"After my long experience, after my patience and forbearance, I have surely the right to protest against the untruth (would that I could apply to it any other word!) that evangelical religion, or any religion in a violent form, is a wholesome or valuable or desirable adjunct to human life. It divides heart from heart. It sets up a vain, chimerical ideal, in the barren pursuit of which all the tender, indulgent affections, all the genial play of life, all the exquisite pleasures and soft resignations of the body, all that enlarges and calms the soul are exchanged for what is harsh and void and negative. It encourages a stern and ignorant spirit of condemnation; it throws altogether out of gear the healthy movement of the conscience; it invents virtues which are sterile and cruel; it invents sins which are no sins at all, but which darken the heaven of innocent joy with futile clouds of remorse. There is something horrible, if we will bring ourselves to face it, in the fanaticism that can do nothing with this pathetic and fugitive existence of ours but treat it as if it were the uncomfortable ante-chamber to a palace which no one has explored and of the plan of which we know absolutely nothing."
There are memoirs that are fantastically self-absorbed, but they tend to make bad books. The universe is full, as Melville wrote. And so, how then to tell a story that can transcend the ego's desire for self-admiration and self-pity, and yet allow for the fullness of the universe to run through it? This book is an excellent illustration. Full of the specificities of two particular lives 鈥� two temperaments, two consciences, two colliding universes 鈥� and the one's desire to throw off the shackles imposed on him by the other. At once a story of an unbearably oppressive Christian faith, and a meticulously observed portrait of the tensions of family life. One of the best things I've read all year.
January 6, 2023
A beautifully written book - often gently sardonic in its description of the religious zealotry of the authors' Plymouth Brethren parents. I listened to this book on Audible and some parts had me laughing out loud. Look out for the plum pudding scene - it's priceless. The gradual awakening of the author, his self awareness and introspection are like the slow peeling back of the curtain of bigotry. The d茅nouement is both satisfying and poignant. Highly recommended
December 26, 2016
Edmund Gosse's father was a self-taught marine biologist and his mother, a poet and illustrator, but the center of their lives was their fundamentalist faith. They were Plymouth Brethren and were devoted to this fundamentalist Christian sect. Edmund was their only child and this is how he describes their life together: "For over three years after their marriage, neither of my parents left London for a single day, not being able to afford to travel. They received scarcely any visitors, never ate a meal away from home, never spent an evening in social intercourse abroad. At night they discussed theology, read aloud to one another, or translated scientific brochures from French or German. It sounds a terrible life of pressure and deprivation, and that it was physically unwholesome there can be no shadow of a doubt. But their commitment was complete and unfeigned."
Gosse, who eventually became a poet, critic and memoirist was not allowed to read fiction in this household. Fiction was made up. It was a lie and therefore a sin. This is particularly interesting as his mother enjoyed making up stories as a child and was able to hold an audience rapt as she told them. The family had little to do with people outside their religious sect and only decided to subscribe to a newspaper once England became engage in the Crimean War.
Gosse's mother died when he was 8 of breast cancer and his father remarried a woman with whom young Edmund got along very well. But a rift with his father continues to grow. When Edmund brings home a volume of poetry, his father burns it. His stepmother asks her husband's permission to introduce Edmund to Sir Walter Scott's Waverly novels No dice.
Gosse's father who found great comfort and satisfaction in his scientific work is dealt a blow when Darwin publishes "The Origin of the Species" because he cannot reconcile his literal interpretation of the Bible with Darwin's theory. He published Omphalos, a book that argued that the world was created with all it's species all at once. It was dismissed by almost everyone as a preposterous idea. Though Gosse says that this destroyed his father, indications are that his father continued to lecture and publish.
Father and Son is worth reading for Gosse's close attention to his own development (his understanding that his father was fallible, his belated delight in literature and his ability to become for lack of another phrase, "his own person.")
His literary style is somewhat formal but a pleasure to read
Gosse, who eventually became a poet, critic and memoirist was not allowed to read fiction in this household. Fiction was made up. It was a lie and therefore a sin. This is particularly interesting as his mother enjoyed making up stories as a child and was able to hold an audience rapt as she told them. The family had little to do with people outside their religious sect and only decided to subscribe to a newspaper once England became engage in the Crimean War.
Gosse's mother died when he was 8 of breast cancer and his father remarried a woman with whom young Edmund got along very well. But a rift with his father continues to grow. When Edmund brings home a volume of poetry, his father burns it. His stepmother asks her husband's permission to introduce Edmund to Sir Walter Scott's Waverly novels No dice.
Gosse's father who found great comfort and satisfaction in his scientific work is dealt a blow when Darwin publishes "The Origin of the Species" because he cannot reconcile his literal interpretation of the Bible with Darwin's theory. He published Omphalos, a book that argued that the world was created with all it's species all at once. It was dismissed by almost everyone as a preposterous idea. Though Gosse says that this destroyed his father, indications are that his father continued to lecture and publish.
Father and Son is worth reading for Gosse's close attention to his own development (his understanding that his father was fallible, his belated delight in literature and his ability to become for lack of another phrase, "his own person.")
His literary style is somewhat formal but a pleasure to read
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