"This book is the record of a struggle between two temperaments, two consciences, and almost two epochs. It ended, as was inevitable, in disruption. Of the two being here described, one was born to fly backward, the other could not help being carried forward..." Thus begins this remarkable chronicle of the division between generations. Goose was born in 1849 into a deeply religious household; both parents were pious member of the Plymouth Brethren, a narrow sect. This book, Gosse's masterpiece, was anonymously published in 1907.

Father and Son

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.

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