After his wife's desertion, Sir Austin wants to bring up his son according to a strict educational system governing every aspect of his life. However Richard has to make his own mistakes, fall in love, and generally live his own life. This book tells about the clashes between Richard's wish to govern his own life to his father's constant interference. This book was very influential. The leading libraries of the day considered it too frank and sexually explicit and refused to buy it. Later authors including E. M. Forster, Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf admired and respected it.