British essayist, literary critic and biographer Edmund Gosse was born in London in 1849. His father was a zoologist, who later became somewhat of a religious fanatic, belonging to a very conservative, fundamentalist sect called the Plymouth Brethren. The father did not believe in public education, and consequently Edmund was schooled at home; he never attended an actual "school" until he began college.

In 1867, at age 18, he was appointed assistant librarian at the British Museum. In 1875 he went to work for the Board of Trade. He eventually became acquaintances, and then friends, with many of the major figures in British literature of the day, such as 'Rudyard Kipling', 'George Bernard Shaw', 'Henry James' and 'Max Beerbohm'.

He was a lecturer in English Literature at Cambridge's Trinity College from 1884-90. In 1904 he left his post at the Board of Trade to become Librarian at the House of Lords. In 1925 he was knighted, being made Commander of the Order of the Bath 1907.

He died in 1928 following an operation.

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Edmund Gosse

Writer