Edmund Gosse letters

English author Edmund Gosse (1849-1928) wrote works of poetry, literary criticism and biography. Primarily active in the Victorian period, Gosse was one of the group of poets working as a civil servant at the English Board of Trade that included English poet Austin Dobson (1840-1921). Throughout his career, Gosse remained in contact with many of the most important writers of his time, including Charles Swinburne and Henry James.

One of Edmund Gosse's most acclaimed works, Father and Son (1907), chronicles his childhood growing up with fundamentalist Christian parents. As he established his literary career, Gosse drifted toward the artistic circles blossoming in England in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His first work of poetry, Madrigals, Songs and Sonnets (1870), circulated among the painters and poets of the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1875, he married the aspiring painter Ellen Epps (1850-1929), a student of Ford Madox Brown. Gosse continued to write poetry and expand his literary circle to such considerable figures as Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Browning. Although Gosse did not achieve the literary fame his friends and contemporaries did, he is known for his vivid descriptions of the figures who moved in his literary and social networks. Gosse is also known for his full length biographies that include works on John Donne (1899) and Charles Swinburne (1917).

In addition to his creative writing, Edmund Gosse wrote works of literary criticism. His first critical book and perhaps most significant was Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe (1879), which is credited with introducing Henrik Ibsen to English audiences.

Thwaite, Ann. "Gosse, Sir Edmund (1849-1928)."Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2011. http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/33/101033481/ (accessed October 2014). "Edmund (William) Gosse." Contemporary Authors Online (reproduced in Gale Biography in Context). http:/galenet.galegroup.com (accessed October 2014).