Edmund Gosse Entertains: Gossip in a Library (1891)

Abstract

The appearance of Edmund Gosse’s From Shakespeare to Pope in 1885 led quickly to its author’s vilification as a shoddy scholar, to the point where his name became synonymous for misrepresentation of sources. The strategy Gosse followed to redeem his reputation was to publish a series of articles in the New York Independent which were collected in Gossip in a Library (1891). Focusing on Gossip in a Library, this essay discusses the reception and context of Gosse’s criticism, revealing recurrent themes and stylistic traits in these essays, considering their impact on subsequent criticism, and evaluating their impact on Gosse’s subsequent reputation. Proceeding from the fiction that Gosse is sharing thoughts on books in his private library, Gossip covers a range of topics and genres. In the essays Gosse manages to launch thinly veiled attacks on John Churton Collins, who had been particularly critical of From Shakespeare to Pope, and to discuss a number of minor figures whose work interested him. The positive reception of Gossip spurred Gosse to publish twelve more collections, rehabilitating his reputation to the point that, at his death, he was considered a leading literary figure among the Victorians.