His father, a powerful and wealthy nanushi, owned all land from Ushigome to Takadanobaba in Edo and handled most civil lawsuits at his doorstep.

[3] However, his family disapproved strongly of this course of action, and when Sōseki entered the Tokyo Imperial University in September 1884, it was with the intention of becoming an architect.

He had a miserable time in London, spending most of his days indoors buried in books, and his friends feared that he might be losing his mind.

Despite his poverty, loneliness, and mental torment, he consolidated his knowledge of English literature during this period and left the United Kingdom in December 1902, returning to the Empire of Japan in January 1903.

[15][16] He followed on this success with short stories, such as "Rondon tō" ("Tower of London") in 1905[17] and the novels Botchan ("Little Master"), and Kusamakura ("Grass Pillow") in 1906, which established his reputation, and which enabled him to leave his post at the university for a position with Asahi Shimbun in 1907, and to begin writing full-time.

His early works in particular are influenced by his studies in London; his novel Kairo-kō was the earliest and only major prose treatment of the Arthurian legend in Japanese.

[19] Major themes in Sōseki's works include economic hardship, conflicts between duty and desire, and the rapid Westernization and industrialization of Japan.

[citation needed] Sōseki took a strong interest in the writers of the Shirakaba (White Birch) literary group.

In his final years, authors such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Kume Masao became close followers of his literary style as his disciples.

Reasons for this emergence of global interest have been attributed in part to Haruki Murakami who said Sōseki was his favorite Japanese writer.

[22] Political scientist and principal of Seigakuin University Kang Sang-jung argued that "Soseki predicted the problems we are facing today [and] had a long-term view of civilization," suggesting that "[h]is popularity will become more global in the future".

The robot gave lectures and recitations of Sōseki's works at the university, as a way to engage students' interest in literature.

[26][27] In June 2019, retired professor Ikuo Tsunematsu reopened the Sōseki Museum, in Surrey, dedicated to the writer's life in the United Kingdom.

The museum originally opened in 1982 in London, but closed in 2016 due to high maintenance costs and a decreased rate of attendance.