Editing Philip Henry Gosse (section)

==''Father and Son''==
After his father's death, Edmund Gosse published a typical Victorian biography, ''The Life of Philip Henry Gosse'' (1890). After reading it, the writer [[George Moore (novelist)|George Moore]] suggested to Edmund that it contained "the germ of a great book." Edmund Gosse revised his material and first published his notable memoir anonymously as ''[[Father and Son (Gosse book)|Father and Son]]'' in 1907. It has never gone out of print.<ref>Edmund Gosse, ''Father and Son'', Michael Newton, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2004), xxix; {{harvp|Thwaite|2002|p=xvi}}</ref> The reaction of readers to Henry's personality and character, as represented in ''Father and Son'', has included phrases such as "scientific crackpot", "bible-soaked romantic", "a stern and repressive father", and a "pulpit-thumping Puritan throwback to the seventeenth century".<ref>Rendle-Short, 45.</ref>

A modern editor of ''Father and Son'' has rejected this portrait of Philip Henry Gosse, on the grounds that his own "writings reveal a genuinely sweet character."<ref>Edmund Gosse, ''Father and Son'' Michael Newton, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2004), xvii.</ref> [[Ann Thwaite]], the biographer of both Gosses, has established just how inaccurate Edmund's recollections of his childhood were. [[Henry James]] remarked that Edmund Gosse had "a genius for inaccuracy".{{sfnp|Thwaite|2002|p=xvi}} Although Edmund went out of his way to declare that the story of ''Father and Son'' was "scrupulously true," Thwaite cites a dozen occasions on which either Edmund's "memory betray[ed] him (he admitted it was 'like a colander')", or he "changed things deliberately to make a better story."{{sfnp|Thwaite|2002|pp=xvi–xvii}} Thwaite argues that Edmund could only preserve his self-respect, in comparison to his father's superior abilities, by demolishing the latter's character.<ref>"Review: The other side of a Victorian monster",  ''[[The Sunday Times]]'', 13 October 2002.</ref> Nearly a century after Gosse's death, a study based on his published remarks and writings about his father concluded that in varying degrees, they are "riddled with error, distortion, contradictions, unwarranted claims, misrepresentation, abuse of the written record, and unfamiliarity with the subject."<ref name="nineteenthcenturyprose.org"/>