Luckily, at least two other readers – John Addington Symonds and George Moore – suggested that Gosse should be more autobiographical and explore the father-son relationship.Īlmost 20 years later, Gosse unburdened himself of Father and Son.
Written shortly after his father's death on 23 August 1888, The Life of Philip Henry Gosse was admired by Henry James as "a singularly clever, skilful, vivid, well-done biography of his father, the fanatic and naturalist – very happy in proportion, tact and talent". Interestingly, Gosse's first attempt to write about his father took the form of an official biography. The first of all father memoirs, this is still one of the best. The 10 books described below give an idea of how poignant, rich and rewarding father memoirs can be. As with tattoos, some are visceral works of art. The 20th century saw a steady increase in the number of father memoirs and, now that the boomers are ageing and seeking to immortalise themselves, such memoirs are becoming as ubiquitous as tattoos. Once the taboo was broken, writers were quick to take advantage of the new possibilities.
In 1907, six years after the death of Queen Victoria, Edmund Gosse published Father and Son. Paradoxically – but not surprisingly, given the rigid paternalism of the age and the attendant psychological pressures – personal father writing, like radical feminism, is a product of the Victorian era. The Greeks, despite their searingly perceptive stories about father-child interactions, did not attempt to do so – nor did the Romans, the Italians of the Renaissance, the Elizabethans or even the Romantics. To write about the father is to sit in judgment upon him, and for most cultures this was a taboo too strong to be overcome. Confronting fathers directly and publicly is not, and never has been, easy: the patriarch should judge and not be judged. The concept of father memoirs is a fascinating one.
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