Gosse started his career as assistant librarian at the
British Museum from 1867 alongside the songwriter
Theo Marzials, a post which
Charles Kingsley helped his father obtain for him. An early book of poetry published with a friend
John Arthur Blaikie gave him an introduction to the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Trips to Denmark and Norway in 1872–74, where he visited
Hans Christian Andersen and
Frederik Paludan-Müller, led to publishing success with reviews of
Henrik Ibsen and
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in the
Cornhill Magazine. He was soon reviewing Scandinavian literature in a variety of publications. He became acquainted with
Alfred, Lord Tennyson and friends with
Robert Browning,
Algernon Charles Swinburne,
Thomas Hardy and
Henry James. In the meantime, he published his first solo volume of poetry,
On Viol and Flute (1873) and a work of criticism,
Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe (1879). Gosse and
Robert Louis Stevenson first met while teenagers, and after 1879, when Stevenson came to London on occasion, he would stay with Gosse and his family. In 1875 Gosse became a translator at the
Board of Trade, a post which he held until 1904 and gave him time for his writing and enabled him to marry and start a family. From 1884 to 1890, Gosse lectured in English literature at
Trinity College, Cambridge, despite his lack of academic qualifications. Cambridge University gave him an honorary MA in 1886, and Trinity College formally admitted him as a member, 'by order of the Council', in 1889. He made a successful American lecture tour in 1884 and was much in demand as a speaker and on committees as well as publishing a string of critical works as well as poetry and histories. He became, in the 1880s, one of the most important art critics dealing with sculpture (writing mainly for the
Saturday Review) with an interest spurred on by his intimate friendship with the sculptor
Hamo Thornycroft. Gosse would eventually write the first history of the renaissance of late-Victorian sculpture in 1894 in a four-part series for
The Art Journal, dubbing the movement the
New Sculpture. In 1902 he published an English translation of
Alexandre Dumas fils'
Lady of the Camellias. In 1904, he became the librarian of the
House of Lords Library, where he exercised considerable influence till he retired in 1914. He wrote for the
Sunday Times, and was an expert on
Thomas Gray,
William Congreve,
John Donne,
Jeremy Taylor, and
Coventry Patmore. He can also take credit for introducing
Henrik Ibsen's work to the British public. Gosse and
William Archer collaborated in translating
Hedda Gabler and
The Master Builder; those two translations were performed throughout the 20th century. Gosse and Archer, along with
George Bernard Shaw, were perhaps the literary critics most responsible for popularising Ibsen's plays among English-speaking audiences. Gosse was instrumental in getting official financial support for two struggling Irish writers, W.B. Yeats in 1910 and James Joyce in 1915. This enabled both writers to continue their chosen careers. His most famous book is the autobiographical
Father and Son, about his troubled relationship with his
Plymouth Brethren father, Philip, which was dramatised for television by
Dennis Potter. Published anonymously in 1907, this followed a biography he had written of his father as naturalist, when he was urged by
George Moore among others to write more about his past. Historians caution, though, that notwithstanding its psychological insight and literary excellence, Gosse's narrative is often at odds with the verifiable facts of his own and his parents' lives. In later life, he became a formative influence on
Siegfried Sassoon, the nephew of his lifelong friend, Hamo Thornycroft. Sassoon's mother was a friend of Gosse's wife,
Ellen. Gosse was also closely tied to figures such as
Algernon Charles Swinburne,
John Addington Symonds, and
André Gide. His book
The Autumn Garden, which was published in 1908 by the London publisher
William Heinemann, includes over 50 individual poems and essays. Gosse was the literary editor for the 1911 edition of the
Encyclopædia Britannica. From 1898 he edited the Short Histories of the Literatures of the World book series (Heinemann, London) which was co-published in the United States by D. Appleton and Company, New York. ==Personal life==