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.