“Don’t judge a book by its cover”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a phrase that originated in the mid-Nineteenth Century and we have all been surprised when the content of books bears little relation to the illustrations that appear on their covers. A good example is provided by the illustrations for Father and Son [1], an autobiography by Edmund Gosse that leaves readers with a feeling of empathy for its author, as he faced the challenges of a strict religious upbringing in Torquay in the 1850s and 1860s. Among these readers is Sarah Perry who wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph [2] drawing parallels between Edmund’s experience of the constraints of a religious straitjacket with her own upbringing as a Baptist. She acknowledges the power of his writing in describing his father, the great Natural Historian Philip Henry Gosse, a creationist and member of the Brethren.

Father and Son had a long gestation. Edmund published the first biography of his father in 1890, two years after Henry died, and it is a largely factual account that also includes an appreciation by Eliza Gosse, Henry’s second wife and Edmund’s stepmother. Ann Thwaite remarks [3] that the biography was “extremely well received” and various of Edmund’s friends, such as John Addington Symonds and George Moore, saw another book in the story of Henry and Edmund, to be told from Edmund’s side. That book was Father and Son, and the germ of the idea took years to grow.

Like Ann Thwaite, Sarah Perry recognises that Edmund was not renowned for accuracy and Father and Son, published anonymously, and with the names of some key characters altered, may contain some exaggerated stories. However, it is a powerful work of literature and has done much to colour the reputation of Henry Gosse that we have today. Almost everyone comes to the Gosse family through reading works by Edmund (including Ann Thwaite, who followed up her biography of Edmund with her delightful biography of Henry, Glimpses of the Wonderful [4]). In contrast, I came to Edmund through reading Henry’s books and scientific writings and he was a fascinating and warm man. However, my admiration does not extend to his religious beliefs and this is recounted in Walking with Gosse [5] and numerous posts on this blog [6].

Considering the the way we select books set me thinking about how many people first chose to read Father and Son from the art work on the cover. But how true is the illustration to the content? Let’s look at some of the covers that have adorned Edmund Gosse’s book. The first I show (above) has the famous picture of Henry and Edmund that was used as the frontispiece for the first edition of Father and Son. The photograph was taken in Torquay in 1857; the year when they had moved to St Marychurch after the death of Henry’s first wife Emily. It is touching and clearly meant much to Edmund.

The next cover features the wonderfully sensitive portrait of Edmund by John Singer Sargent (above).

We then go on to see covers from various editions (above) that show the shore where Henry and Edmund collected specimens or the countryside through which they walked. They provide a general background, but they are not recognisable as being from Torbay.

The final series of cover illustrations (above) appear to have been created by artists who had little inkling of the content of the book and some of them are decidedly strange. As stated earlier, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

[1] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. London, William Heinemann.

[2] Sarah Perry (2018) Like meeting the gaze of a friend in a room of strangers. The Daily Telegraph 24th November pp. 14-16.

[3] Ann Thwaite (1984) Edmund Gosse: A Literary Landscape. London, Martin Secker and Warburg.

[4] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber and Faber.

[5] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book.

[6] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com (numerous entries).

It should also be stated that various editions of Father and Son have covers based on designs (see below).

  

I am grateful to Greg Peakin for pointing out the article by Sarah Perry.