13 Photographs of Famous Writers With Their Fathers

As you may recall, for this past Mother’s Day, we collected a few snapshots of famous writers hanging out with their moms. So now, as Father’s Day approaches, it’s only fair that we do the same for the dads. Below, some of our favorite authors—from Virginia Woolf to Walter Mosley—and the men who contributed to their births. As a bonus, many of these now-notable writers were kids at the time the photos were taken. A collective “awww” would not be amiss here. A collective calling of our fathers (for those of us for whom it is appropriate to do so this year) would also seem about on the money.

Virginia Woolf and her father, Leslie Stephen, photographed by George Charles Beresford, 1902

F. Scott Fitzgerald and his father, Edward, 1929

Jack Kerouac with his sister Caroline, mother Gabrielle, and father Leo (over there on the right), 1944. Photo via NYPL via The Allen Ginsberg Project

Hanif Kureishi, 6, with his father, Rafiushan Kureishi, in their garden in suburban London. Photo via the NYT

Margaret Atwood with her father in Ontario in 1942. Photo via The Telegraph

Henry James, age 11, with his father, Henry James Sr. From an 1854 daguerreotype by Mathew Brady

Mohsin Hamid as a child, with his father in Lahore, 1974. Photo via Herald

Harper Lee with her father, Amasa Coleman Lee. Photo by Donald Uhrbrock via The Wall Street Journal

Walter Mosley with his father, Leroy Mosley. Photo via NPR

A very tiny Ursula K. Le Guin, c. 1929, in the arms of her father, Alfred Kroeber. Photo via the Bancroft Library

Three-year-old Jhumpa Lahiri, with her parents, Amar and Tapati, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, circa 1970. Photo via The New Yorker

Martin Amis and Kingsley Amis in 1975. Photo by Dmitri Kasterine via the National Portrait Gallery

Joyce Carol Oates with her father, Frederic Oates, 1943. Photo by Carolina Oates via NYRB