author
Thomas S. Gowing
Best remembered for a delightfully eccentric Victorian defense of facial hair, this 19th-century English writer turned a beard into a subject for history, art, and social commentary. His work still stands out for its mix of humor, curiosity, and period charm.
1 Audiobook
The Philosophy of Beards A Lecture Physiological, Artistic & Historical
by Thomas S. Gowing
About the author
Thomas S. Gowing, also listed as Thomas Shave Gowing (1806–1874), was an English author whose surviving reputation rests mainly on The Philosophy of Beards, a playful but surprisingly wide-ranging work on the meaning of beards in culture and history.
Available records also connect him with Normal Schools: And the Principles of Government Interference with Education from 1838, suggesting interests that reached beyond comic cultural observation into public questions about education. That combination makes him an appealingly unusual figure: a writer willing to treat both serious reform and a seemingly quirky subject with equal conviction.
Today, he is remembered less as a major literary celebrity than as the author of one of the Victorian era's most memorable curiosities. The Philosophy of Beards remains popular because it is witty, earnest, and unmistakably of its time, while still being fun for modern readers to discover.