author
Philip Gosse
1879–1959
A doctor by training and a historian by passion, he became one of the best-known writers on pirates and buccaneers in the early 20th century. His books mix careful research with a lively taste for adventure, and they still attract readers interested in the stranger corners of maritime history.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1879, Philip Henry George Gosse was the son of writer and critic Edmund Gosse. He trained as a physician and later served as Superintendent of the Radium Institute in London, ending that part of his career in 1930.
After that, he devoted himself more fully to writing and collecting, especially on the history of piracy. Archival records describe him as an author, historian, and collector, and note that he built a notable collection of books and documents on pirates that later went to the National Maritime Museum. Among the works associated with him are The Pirates' Who's Who, The History of Piracy, and the wartime memoir Memoirs of a Camp-Follower, later reissued as A Naturalist Goes to War.
He also wrote on natural history, a fitting interest for the grandson of the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse. Philip Gosse died in 1959, remembered for bringing scholarly curiosity and a storyteller's energy to subjects ranging from wildlife to seafaring outlaws.