Father & Son

Edmund Gosse's childhood memoir tells the often fractious, often comic story of his relationship with his authoritarian father. A pioneering naturalist and marine biologist, Philip Henry Gosse's strictly religious worldview is brought into crisis by the discoveries of Charles Darwin, and the death of his wife—and Edmund’s mother—Emily. As Edmund breaks away from his father's influence, the evolution from one epoch to the next is described in all of its struggle, humor and glory.

Sir Edmund William Gosse was born in 1849 to the Naturalist Philip Henry Gosse and the poet and illustrator Emily Bowes. A poet and a critic, as well as the librarian of the House of Lords library, Gosse wielded considerable influence in the art world of the early 20th century. Gosse was knighted in 1925, three years before his death in 1928. Sarah Perry is the author of The Essex Serpent. Anthony Quinn was an Academy Award-winning actor.