the cambridge companion to john ruskin -...

the cambridge companion tojohn ruskin

John Ruskin (1819–1900), one of the leading literary, aesthetic, and intellectualfigures of the middle and late Victorian period, and a significant influence onwriters from Tolstoy to Proust, has established his claim as a major writer ofEnglish prose. This collection of essays brings together leading experts from awide range of disciplines to analyse his ideas in the context of his life and work.Topics include Ruskin’s Europe, architecture, technology, autobiography, art,gender, and his rich influence even in the contemporary world. This is the firstmulti-authored expert collection to assess the totality of Ruskin’s achievementand to open up the deep coherence of a troubled but dazzling mind. A chronol-ogy and guide to further reading contribute to the usefulness of the volume forstudents and scholars.

francis o’gorman is a professor in the School of English at the University ofLeeds and the author ofWorrying: A Literary and Cultural History (2015). Hisother recent publications include editions of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Sylvia’s Lovers(2014), Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage (co-edited with KatherineMullin, 2014), and Ruskin’s Praeterita (2012), as well as The CambridgeCompanion to Victorian Culture (2010).

A complete list of books in the series is at the back of this book.

www.cambridge.org© in this web service Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press978-1-107-05489-9 - The Cambridge Companion to John RuskinEdited by Francis O’gormanFrontmatterMore information

http://www.cambridge.org/9781107054899

http://www.cambridge.org


THE CAMBRIDGE

COMPANION TO

JOHN RUSKIN

edited by

FRANCIS O ’GORMAN






University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit ofeducation, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107674240

© Cambridge University Press 2015

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2015

Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataThe Cambridge Companion to John Ruskin / edited by Francis O’Gorman.

pages cm. – (Cambridge Companions to literature)Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-1-107-05489-9 (hardback) – isbn 978-1-107-67424-0 (paperback)1. Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Ruskin, John,

1819–1900 – Appreciation. 3. Ruskin, John, 1819–1900 – Influence. 4. Ruskin,John, 1819–1900. 5. Authors, English – 19th century – Biography. I. O’Gorman,

Francis, editor. II. Title: Companion to John Ruskin.pr5264.c36 2015828’.809–dc232015021266

isbn 978-1-107-05489-9 Hardbackisbn 978-1-107-67424-0 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy ofURLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,

accurate or appropriate.






For Stephen Wildman

Director and Curator Ruskin Library and Research Centre

University of Lancaster UK

With gratitude






CONTENTS

List of illustrations ixNotes on contributors xiAcknowledgements xivNote on the principal contents of the Library Edition xvChronology xviiList of abbreviations xxiii

1 Introduction 1

francis o’gorman

part i places

2 Edinburgh–London–Oxford–Coniston 17

keith hanley

3 The Alps 32

emma sdegno

4 Italy 49

nicholas shrimpton

5 France and Belgium 66

cynthia gamble

part ii topics

6 Art 83

lucy hartley

7 Architecture 100

geoffrey tyack

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8 Politics and economics 116

nicholas shrimpton

9 Nation and class 130

judith stoddart

10 Religion 144

francis o’gorman

11 Sexuality and gender 157

sharon aronofsky weltman

12 Technology 170

alan davis

part ii i authorship

13 Ruskin and Carlyle 189

david r. sorensen

14 Lecturing and public voice 202

dinah birch

15 Diary journals, correspondence, autobiography, and private voice 216

martin dubois

16 Creativity 230

clive wilmer

part iv legacies

17 Political legacies 249

stuart eagles

18 Cultural legacies 263

marcus waithe

Guide to further reading 279

Index 286

contents

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ILLUSTRATIONS

1. John Ruskin, Glacier des Bois, Chamonix, c.1856. RF, RuskinLibrary, Lancaster University. Reproduced with permission. 36

2. John Ruskin, The Gates of the Hills, detail from The Pass of StGothard near Faido, Switzerland, after J. M. W. Turner, 1855.Watercolour on paper. CGSG00105: Collection of the Guild ofSt George, Museums Sheffield. Reproduced with permission. 39

3. John Ruskin, Church at Dijon, 1833. Reproduced courtesy ofAbbotHall Art Gallery, LakelandArts Trust, Kendal, Cumbria. 69

4. J. M. W. Turner, Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard theDead and Dying, Typhoon coming on), 1840. Oil on canvas,90.8 × 122.6cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Henry LilliePierce Fund, 99.22. Reproduced with permission. 85

5. Fra Angelico, Ancilla Domini. vii. Frontispiece. Engraving byW. Holl. Library Edition, vii. frontispiece. Reproduced by kindpermission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 94

6. John Ruskin after Tintoretto, Advanced Naturalism. LibraryEdition, v.398. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndicsof Cambridge University Library. 95

7. John Ruskin, Decoration by Disks, Palazzo dei BadoariPartecipazzi. Library Edition, ix.288. Reproduced by kindpermission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 105

8. Benjamin Woodward, The Oxford Museum, 1858. LibraryEdition, xvi.216. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndicsof Cambridge University Library. 108

9. Comparison of engravings of J. M. W. Turner’s By theBrook-side (Richmond from the Moors, made for Turner’sEngland and Wales series of engravings) by J. C. Armytageunder Ruskin’s supervision (above), and by J. T. Willmore

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under Turner’s supervision (below). Library Edition, vii.128.(Image: Alan Davis.) 179

10. Wood engraving after Frederick Sandys’s Until Her Death,Good Words, 1863 (above), with enlarged detail (below).(Image: Alan Davis.) 183

11. The Last Furrow. Library Edition, xxii.352. (Image: AlanDavis.) 185

12. John Ruskin, The Vine: Free, and in Service, 1853, from TheStones of Venice II. Plate VI, Library Edition x.115.Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of CambridgeUniversity Library. 235

13. David and Lida Cardozo Kindersley, The Ruskin Gallery, greenslate, painted and gilded. Collection of the Guild of St George,Museums Sheffield, 1985. Reproduced with permission. 268

list of illustrations

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CONTRIBUTORS

d inah b irch is Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of English Literature atLiverpool University. Her publications include Ruskin’s Myths (1988) andRuskin on Turner (1990), together with a selected edition of Fors Clavigera(2000) and JohnRuskin: SelectedWritings (2004). Her study of nineteenth-centuryeducational ideals, Our Victorian Education, appeared in 2008. She is GeneralEditor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature (7th edn, 2009).

alan dav i s is editor of The Ruskin Review and Bulletin and Honorary VisitingResearcher at the Ruskin Library and Research Centre (Lancaster University),with a special interest in Ruskin, Turner, and printmaking. He has curatedexhibitions at the Ruskin Library including ‘A Pen of Iron’: Ruskin andPrintmaking (2003), Ruskin’s Organic Vision (2005), and Ruskin and thePersephone Myth (2007).

mart in dubo i s is a Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University ofNewcastle. He has published articles on a range of Victorian writers, includingHopkins and William Barnes, and is currently completing a monograph onHopkins and the poetry of religious experience.

s tuart eagle s is Secretary of the Guild of St George. His first book, AfterRuskin (2011), explores Ruskin’s social and political legacies in Great Britain upto 1920. In 2010, he gave the Ruskin Lecture on the subject of ‘Ruskin andTolstoy’ and he continues to work on Ruskin’s reception in Russia and elsewherein Europe.

cynth ia gamble is Chairman of the Ruskin Society and Honorary ResearchFellow at the University of Exeter. She writes and lectures on Anglo-Frenchcrosscurrents with Ruskin and Proust as foundations of her interdisciplinaryresearch. Her books include Proust as Interpreter of Ruskin: The Seven Lamps ofArchitecture (2002), John Ruskin, Henry James and the Shropshire Lads (2008),L’oeil de Ruskin: l’exemple de la Bourgogne (2011), and Wenlock Abbey1857–1919: A Shropshire Country House and theMilnes Gaskell Family (2015).

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ke i th hanley is Professor of English literature at Lancaster University, where hedirected the Ruskin Centre, 2000–8. His books include John Ruskin’s RomanticTours 1837–1838: Travelling North (2007) and, with J. K. Walton, ConstructingCultural Tourism: John Ruskin and the Tourist Gaze (2010) as well as Ruskin’sStruggle for Coherence (co-ed with Rachel Dickinson 2008). An edition of JohnRuskin’s Continental Tour, 1835: The Written Records and Drawings isforthcoming.

lucy hartley is Professor of English at the University of Michigan. She is theauthor of Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in Nineteenth-CenturyCulture (Cambridge, 2001), and has published essays on aesthetics and democracyas well as on a critical bibliography of John Stuart Mill. She is currently editing acollection of essays entitled The History of British Women’s Writing, 1830–1880and recently completed a new book,The Interest in Beauty: Art and Public PoliticalLife in Nineteenth-Century Britain.

franc i s o ’gorman published Late Ruskin: New Contexts in 2001 and editedRuskin and Gender (2002) with Dinah Birch. He is the author most recently ofWorrying: A Literary and Cultural History (2015) and editor of Ruskin’sPraeterita (2012), the Oxford Twenty-First Century Authors Algernon CharlesSwinburne (2016), and Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (2016). He edited TheCambridge Companion to Victorian Culture (2010) and is currently a Professor inthe School of English at the University of Leeds.

emma sdegno teaches Victorian literature at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice. Shehas published several essays on Ruskin and British travel culture. Her booksinclude Ruskin, Venice and 19th-Century Cultural Travel (2010, edited withKeith Hanley) and John Ruskin’s Écrits sur les Alpes (2013, edited with ClaudeReichler). She translated into Italian Ruskin’s Guide to Principal Pictures in theAcademy of Fine Arts of Venice 1877 (2014, edited by Paul Tucker).

n icholas shr impton is an Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.Hismost recent publications areRuskin and ‘War’ (2014), and editions of AnthonyTrollope’sAnAutobiography (2014) andTheWarden (2014). His other writing onRuskin includes the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on his work (15th edn, 2002printing, andEBOn-Line) and ‘Ruskin and the Aesthetes’ inRuskin and the Dawnof the Modern (1999, edited by Dinah Birch).

dav id r . sorensen is Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University,Philadelphia. He is Senior Editor of the Duke-Edinburgh Collected Letters ofThomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (Duke, 1970–ongoing) and has co-editedCarlyle’s French Revolution (1989), The Newly Selected Letters of Jane WelshCarlyle (2004), The Carlyles at Home and Abroad (2004), and Carlyle’s Heroesand Hero-Worship (2013).

notes on contributors

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jud i th stoddart is a faculty member in English and associate dean of theGraduate School atMichigan State University. Her work includesRuskin’s CultureWars: ‘Fors Clavigera’ and the Crisis of Liberalism (1998), essays on Victorianvisuality, sentimentality, and theories of the public sphere, and a book project,Pleasures Incarnate: The Aesthetic Project of British Sentimentality, 1830s-1930s.Her current research is on late-Victorian and modernist theories of personality.

geoffrey tyack is a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, Director of theStanford University Centre in Oxford, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.His books include Sir James Pennethorne and the Making of Victorian London(1992), Oxford: An Architectural Guide (1998), and John Nash: Architect of thePicturesque (2013). He contributed a chapter to Ruskin and Architecture (2003,edited by R. Daniels and G. Brandwood) and is co-editor of George Gilbert Scott:An Architect and His Influence (2014).

marcus wa i the is a Fellow in English and a University Senior Lecturer atMagdalene College, Cambridge. He is the author of William Morris’s Utopia ofStrangers: Victorian Medievalism and the Ideal of Hospitality (2006). His recentwork includes essays on Ruskin, Carlyle, Empson, William Barnes, ElizabethBarrett Browning, and Geoffrey Hill. In 2011 he launched Ruskin at Walkley, aweb-based reconstruction of St George’s Museum, available at www.ruskinatwalkley.org.

sharon aronofsky weltman , Davis Alumni Professor of English atLouisiana State University, is the author of two books: Performing the Victorian:John Ruskin and Identity in Theater, Science, and Education (2007) and Ruskin’sMythic Queen: Gender Subversion in Victorian Culture, named OutstandingAcademic Book by Choice magazine in 1999. She also guest-edited a special issueon Ruskin for Nineteenth-Century Prose in 2008.

cl i v e w i lmer is an Emeritus Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College,Cambridge, and Master of the Guild of St George, the charity founded by Ruskinin 1871. He edited JohnRuskin’sUnto This Last andOtherWritings (1985), and isthe author of several books of poetry, includingNew and Collected Poems (2012)and Urban Pastorals (2014).

notes on contributors

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editor is grateful to the following for their support for this volume,advice, and encouragement: Anna Bond, Linda Bree, Bernard Richards,Paul Tucker, and Stephen Wildman. I’m also grateful to all the contributorsfor the helpful discussions we had about the shape and scope of the volume.I want to add my thanks for the interest and intellectual stimulation, overmany years, of Van Akin Burd, Jeanne Clegg, James S. Dearden, RobertHewison, Graham Huggan, Jim Spates, Jane Wright, and members of theRuskin Seminar at the University of Lancaster and my fellow Directors ofthe Victorian Lives and Letters Consortium (http://tundra.csd.sc.edu/vllc).I’d like to thank my family, John and Joyce O’Gorman, and Chris andMichelle O’Gorman, for their hugely generous support. I’d also like tothank Kate Williams for making sure that this book happened after all andfor much else besides.

Ruskin’s writing exists in a variety of different forms: in print, in digitalsurrogates, and in a substantial body of important material that remains inMS form. Material cited by Cynthia Gamble from the Ruskin Library,Lancaster University (marked as RF for Ruskin Foundation), is quotedwith permission. The Ruskin Foundation, which has care of these materials,has sought to establish the copyright for Ruskin’s unpublished literarymanu-scripts but has been unable to do so on the basis of all the informationcurrently known to it. The Foundation, through the Library at Lancaster,would therefore welcome contact from any person or persons who can showthey hold this copyright.

Francis O’GormanYork

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NOTE ON THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTSOF THE LIBRARY EDITION

In order to avoid cluttering parenthetical references with additional text,references to theLibrary Edition are to volume and page number only. Belowis an outline list of the main works in each volume for ease of reference.

i. Early Prose Writingsii. Poemsiii. Modern Painters I (1843)iv. Modern Painters II (1846)v. Modern Painters III (1856)vi. Modern Painters IV (1856)vii. Modern Painters V (1860)viii. The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)ix. The Stones of Venice I (1851)x. The Stones of Venice II (1853)xi. The Stones of Venice III (1853)xii. Lectures on Architecture and Painting (Edinburgh lectures) (1854)xiii. The Harbours of England (1856), Turner Catalogues and Notesxiv. Academy Notes (1855–9, 1875), Notes on Prout and Hunt

(1879–80)xv. The Elements of Drawing (1857), The Elements of Perspective

(1859), The Laws of Fésole (1877–8)xvi. A Joy for Ever (1857), The Two Paths (1859),xvii. Unto This Last (1860), Munera Pulveris (1862–3), Time and Tide

(1867)xviii. Sesame and Lilies (1865), The Ethics of the Dust (1866), The

Crown of Wild Olive (1866)xix. The Cestus of Aglaia (1865–6), The Queen of the Air (1869)xx. Lectures on Art (1870), Aratra Pentelici (1870)xxi. Material relating to the Ruskin Art Collection at Oxford

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xxii. Lectures on Landscape (1871), Michael Angelo and Tintoret(1871), The Eagle’s Nest (1872), Ariadne Florentina (1872)

xxiii. Val d’Arno (1873), The Aesthetic and Mathematical Schools ofFlorence (1874), Mornings in Florence (1875–7), The Shepherd’sTower (1881)

xxiv. Giotto and hisWorks in Padua (1853–60),The Cavalli Monumentsat Verona (1872), Guide to the Academy at Venice (1877), StMark’s Rest (1877–84)

xxv. Love’s Meinie (1873–81), Proserpina (1875–86)xxvi. Deucalion (1875–83)xxvii. Fors Clavigera (1871–3)xxviii. Fors Clavigera (1874–6)xxix. Fors Clavigera (1877–84)xxx. Material relating to the Guild and Museum of St Georgexxxi. Bibliotheca Pastorum: The Economist of Xenophon (1876), Rock

Honeycomb (1877), The Elements of Prosody (1880), A Knight’sFaith (1885)

xxxii. Studies in Peasant Life: The Story of Ida (1883), Roadside Songs ofTuscany (1885), Christ’s Folk in the Apennine (1887), Ulric theFarm Servant (1886–8)

xxxiii. ‘Our Fathers Have Told Us’: The Bible of Amiens (1880–85), ValleCrucis, The Art of England (1883), The Pleasures of England(1884)

xxxiv. The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century (1884)xxxv. Praeterita (1885–9), Dilecta (1886–1900)xxxvi. Letters Ixxxvii. Letters IIxxxviii. Bibliography, Catalogue of Ruskin’s Drawingsxxxix. Index

note on the principal contents of the library edition

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CHRONOLOGY

8 February 1819 John Ruskin, an only child, born to John James andMargaret Ruskin in 54 Hunter Street, London (nowdemolished). Brought up an Evangelical Protestant;often visits Scotland to see relatives.

1823 Familymove toHerneHill, Camberwell: Ruskin alwaysremembers the garden (house now demolished). Ruskintaught by his mother; at some point early in his child-hood, he begins to read through the Bible from cover tocover with her; early signs of exceptional memory.

1824–6 Ruskin travels with his father around Great Britaincollecting orders for sherry: he sees many historicalmonuments and buildings.

1830 First poem published (‘On Skiddaw and DerwentWater’). Tutored in Greek and mathematics but isotherwise educated by his parents.

1832 Presented as a birthday present with a copy of SamuelRogers’ Italy with engravings after, among others,Turner.

1833 First long family tour of the continent. Ruskin sees theAlps. Meets Adèle Domecq, with whom he falls in love.

1834 Taught at the Evangelical Thomas Dale’s school.Publishes his first prose (‘Enquiries on the Causes ofthe Colour of the Water of the Rhine’).

1835 First sees Venice.

1836 Writes a defence of Turner, not printed till 1903.

1837 Enters Christ Church, Oxford, as a gentleman com-moner. Publishes The Poetry of Architecture.

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1838 Tries unsuccessfully for the Newdigate Prize for Poetryat Oxford; visits Scotland and the Lake District.

1839 Wins the Newdigate for ‘Salsette and Elephanta’ andmeets Wordsworth. Purchases Turner’s Richmond,Surrey, the first of what will becomeRuskin’s significantTurner collection.

1840 Embarks on long continental tour that lays the groundfor Modern Painters I.

1841 Treated for depression at Leamington Spa; writes TheKing of the Golden River for Effie Gray. Is taughtpainting by J. D. Harding.

1842 Graduates from Oxford with an honorary doublefourth; father takes a lease on the grand 163 DenmarkHill (now demolished).

1843 Writes and publishes Modern Painters I. Writes morepoetry. Parents continue to hope that he will take holyorders and succeed as a poet.

1844 Visits Switzerland and France, particularly the Alps.

1845 Undertakes crucial visit to France, Switzerland, andItaly, this time without his parents: extends knowledgeof pre-Renaissance Italian art.

1846 Publishes Modern Painters II. Repeats much of 1845tour with his parents.

1847 Receives more treatment in Leamington Spa.Relationship with Effie Gray becoming closer.

1848 Marries Effie on 10 April. The official story will later bethat themarriage was not consummated because of impo-tence but the truth remains unclear (and the impotencestory was almost certainly a convenience to permit anannulment). From August, the family visits Normandy.

1849 Publishes The Seven Lamps of Architecture, his firstsignificant book on buildings. Stays the winter inVenice, working on what will become The Stones ofVenice.

1850 Publishes his Poems.

1851 Issues the first volume of the firmly Protestant TheStones, together with the expensive Examples of the

chronology

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Architecture of Venice and Notes on the Constructionof Sheepfolds, a Protestant account of the duties ofclergy. Turner dies: in Ruskin’s view, the greatest land-scape painter of all time.

1852 Effie and Ruskin move to 30 Herne Hill; another longperiod of study in Venice.

1853 Publishes Stones of Venice II and III and takes a holidayin Glenfinlas with Millais. Ruskin gives a sequence oflectures in Edinburgh on art published the followingyear. Marriage falling apart.

1854 Marriage annulled; travels throughout France,Switzerland, and Italy; beings teaching drawing at theWorking Men’s College.

1856 PublishesModern Painters III and IV and begins activityin support of the new Oxford Museum. In November,he meets Charles Eliot Norton, who will become animportant if obtuse friend.

1857 Begins the exhausting labour of arranging the TurnerBequest (‘upwards of nineteen thousand pieces ofpaper’). Delivers The Political Economy of Art (latercalled A Joy for Ever).

1858 Inaugural address at the Cambridge School of Art. Finally‘unconverted’ from Evangelicalism and enters a longand difficult period of theological thinking. Meets RoseLa Touche (1848–75), an Evangelical Christian withwhom he eventually falls in love. She will never be recon-ciled to Ruskin’s religious unorthodoxy.

1859 Publishes The Two Paths. Visits Yorkshire, and laterGermany and Switzerland. Visits Winnington School(Cheshire), whose liberal programme of educationattracts the post-Evangelical Ruskin.

1860 Ruskin completes Modern Painters and publishes thefour essays ofUnto This Last, which he will later regardas his most important work.

1861 Year dominated by depression; love for Rose deepens.

1862 In April, Ruskin and Rose are forbidden contact and donot meet again till 1866. Ruskin’s father is gravely ill.Publishes Munera Pulveris.

chronology

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1863 Buys land in Chamonix, planning to leave England.Spends time at Winnington, gaining ideas about educa-tion, physical exercise, and religion.

1864 Ruskin’s father dies, leaving his son a fortune. Gives thelectures that become Sesame and Lilies, with Rose onhis mind in ‘Of Queens’ Gardens’. Joan Severn (Joanie)comes to Denmark Hill to care for Ruskin’s mother andwill subsequently care for Ruskin himself at Brantwooduntil his death.

1865 TheGovernor Eyre controversy.The Ethics of the Dust,arising from his teaching at Winnington, is published(with ‘1866’ on the title page).

1866 Publishes The Crown of Wild Olive; travels in Franceand Switzerland; proposes marriage to Rose inFebruary. Periodic states of despair.

1867 Publishes Time and Tide; continuing state of emotionaltorment; deep uncertainties about Christianity continue.

1868 Mrs La Touche contacts Effie (now married to Millais)who denounces Ruskin. Lectures in Dublin. In France atthe end of the year.

1869 Sustained interest in ancient Greek religion. PublishesThe Queen of the Air. Ruskin elected first SladeProfessor of Fine Art at Oxford, his first (and only)official position.

1870 Inaugural lectures; founds drawing school at Oxford(still there).

1871 Disillusionment with Oxford undergraduates; tries toreach a new audience with Fors Clavigera: Letters to theWorkmen and Labourers of Great Britain (till 1884).Death of his mother. Buys Brantwood on ConistonWater. Begins to organise what will become the Guildof St George. InOctober, paints (watercolour and body-colour over graphite on wove paper) Kingfisher (coverimage).

1872 Rose rejects another marriage proposal. Publishes TheEagle’s Nest. Lectures at Oxford.

1873 Begins a sequence of science books searching out themythic meanings of birds, plants, and stones.

chronology

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1874 PublishesVal d’Arno. In Italy; important experiences ofspiritual renewal in Assisi. Declines gold medal of theRoyal Institute of British Architects.

1875 Death of Rose La Touche (possibly from a form ofanorexia nervosa). Ruskin gives a substantial art collec-tion to Oxford. Founds St George’s Museum atWalkley, Sheffield.

1876 Travels in Switzerland: crucial period of spiritual revivalin Venice at Christmas. Continues investigation ofspiritualism.

1877 Dark, characterful drawings of Venice; publishesGuideto the Academy at Venice; begins St Mark’s Rest.

1878 First serious mental breakdown; Whistler v. Ruskinlibel trial; organises Turner exhibition. Resigns chairat Oxford.

1879 Reads Plato; suffers serious depression.

1880 Returns to writing, including his only literary criticism,Fiction, Fair and Foul (to 1881); publishes Arrows ofthe Chace; begins The Bible of Amiens; travels inFrance.

1881 Suffers second episode of grave madness. Disturbed bythe death of Carlyle; undertakes somewriting, includingThe Bible of Amiens.

1882 Suffers devastating attack of mental illness in thespring. Recovering in France at the end of the year.

1883 Resumes Slade Professorship but his lectures areeccentric and his frustration grows. Publishes The Artof England. Increasingly bothered by the associationsbetween his state of mind and the weather.

1884 Publishes The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century.

1885 Resigns the Professorship, appalled by vivisection in hisown Oxford Museum. Begins Praeterita, issued, likemany of his works, in parts. PublishesOn the Old Road.

1886 Suffers from further spell of madness.

1887 Publishes Hortus Inclusus; banished to Folkestone andSandgate and does not think he will see Brantwoodagain; meets Kathleen Olander in London.

chronology

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1888 Leaves Sandgate for France, Switzerland, and Italy.Proposes to Kathleen Olander. Breaks down in Venice.

1889 Writes last portions of Praeterita. Mental breakdownends public career.

1900 Dies on 20 January. Buried in the graveyard ofSt Andrew’s Church Coniston below a cross designedby W. G. Collingwood and carved from green slatefrom the local Tilberthwaite quarry.

chronology

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ABBREVIATIONS

All references to Ruskin’s works, unless stated otherwise, are to The LibraryEdition of the Works of John Ruskin, edited by E. T. Cook and AlexanderWedderburn, 39 vols (London: Allen, 1903–12) and are cited simply asvolume and page number. Note that the Library Edition is available incomplete paperback facsimile from Cambridge University Press’sCambridge Library Collection and in open access pdf form from LancasterUniversity’s Ruskin Library and Research Centre (www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/ruskinlib/Pages/Works.html).

In-text abbreviations

Bradley Letters from Venice, 1851–1852, ed. J. L. Bradley(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955)

Brantwood Diary The Brantwood Diary of John Ruskin: Together withSelected Related Letters and Sketches of PersonsMentioned, ed. Helen Gill Viljoen (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1971)

Cate The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and JohnRuskin, ed. George Allan Cate (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1982)

Diaries The Diaries of John Ruskin, ed. Joan Evans and J. H.Whitehouse, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956–9)[paginated continuously]

Family Letters The Ruskin Family Letters: The Correspondence ofJohn James Ruskin, his Wife, and their Son, John,1801–1843, ed. Van Akin Burd, 2 vols (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1973)

Hayman John Ruskin: Letters from the Continent, 1858, ed. JohnHayman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982)

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Hilton 1 TimHilton, John Ruskin: The Early 1819–1859 (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1985)

Hilton 2 Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: The Later Years (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 2000)

Hilton 3 TimHilton, JohnRuskin (NewHaven: Yale UniversityPress, 2002) (a single volume that comprises bothHilton 1 and Hilton 2)

La Touche John Ruskin and Rose La Touche: Her UnpublishedDiaries of 1861 and 1867, ed. Van Akin Burd (Oxford:Clarendon, 1980)

Library James S. Dearden, The Library of John Ruskin(Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 2012)

Norton The Correspondence of John Ruskin and Charles EliotNorton, ed. John Lewis Bradley and Ian Ousby(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)

Reflections Reflections of a Friendship: John Ruskin’s Letters toPauline Trevelyan 1848-1866, ed. Virginia Surtees(London: Allen & Unwin, 1979)

Shapiro Ruskin in Italy: Letters to his Parents 1845, ed. HaroldI. Shapiro (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)

Winnington TheWinnington Letters: John Ruskin’s Correspondencewith Margaret Alexis Bell and the Children atWinnington Hall, ed. Van Akin Burd (London: Allen &Unwin, 1969)

list of abbreviations

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