Father and Son by Edmund Gosse (Penguin Classics)

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.