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John Ruskin (1819–1900)

Author of The King of the Golden River

431+ Works 7,824 Members 66 Reviews 12 Favorited

About the Author

Ruskin was one of the most influential man of letters of the nineteenth century. An only child, Ruskin was born in Surrey. He attended Christ Church, Oxford, from 1839 to 1842. His ties to his parents, especially his mother, were very strong, and she stayed with him at Oxford until 1840, when, show more showing ominous signs of consumption, he left for a long tour of Switzerland and the Rhineland with both parents. His journeys to France, Germany, and, especially, Italy formed a great portion of his education. Not only did these trips give him firsthand exposure to the art and architecture that would be the focus of much of his long career; they also helped shape what he felt was his main interest, the study of nature. Around this time Ruskin met the landscape artist J. M. W. Turner, for whose work he had developed a deep admiration and whom he lauded in his Modern Painters (1843). In 1848 Ruskin married Euphemia (Effie) Gray, a distant cousin 10 years his junior. This relationship has been the focus of much scholarship, for six years later the marriage was annulled on the grounds of nonconsummation, and in 1855 Effie married John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter and an acquaintance of Ruskin. During the years 1849--52, Ruskin lived in Venice, where he pursued a course of architectural studies, publishing The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and where he began The Stones of Venice (1851--53). It was also during this period that Ruskin's evangelicalism weakened, leading finally to his "unconversion" at Turin in 1858. His subsequent interest in political economy was clearly stated when, echoing his "hero," Carlyle, Ruskin remarked in the last volume of Modern Painters that greed is the deadly principle that guides English life. In a series of essays in Cornhill Magazine attacking the "pseudo-science" of political economists like J. S. Mill, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus, Ruskin argues that England should base its "political economy" on a paternalistic, Christian-based doctrine instead of on competition. The essays were not well received, and the series was canceled short of completion, but Ruskin published the collected essays in 1862 as Unto This Last. At the same time, he renewed his attacks on the political economists in Fraser's Magazine, later publishing these essays as Munera Pulveris (1872). From about 1862 until his death, Ruskin unsuccessfully fought depression. He was in love with Rose La Touche, whom he met when she was 11 and he 41. When she turned 18, Ruskin proposed, but the her parents opposed the marriage, and religious differences (she was devout; Ruskin was at this time a freethinker) kept them from ever marrying. La Touche died in 1875, insane, and three years later Ruskin experienced the first of seven attacks of madness that would plague him over the next 10 years. By 1869 Ruskin had accepted the first Slade Professorship of Fine Art at Oxford, begun his serial Fors Clavigera, been sued and found guilty of libel for his attack on Whistler in Fors Clavigera (he was fined a farthing), and resigned his professorship. Ruskin's work was instrumental in the formation of art history as a modern discipline. A capable artist, he complemented his technical understanding of art with insightful analysis and passionately held social ideals. His social writings are of interest today primarily as artifacts of the age, but his art criticism still holds an important place, especially in his appreciation of Turner. There is a vast number of works on Ruskin. From a literary standpoint, John Rosenberg's study, although dated because of many of its assumptions, is still an outstanding book. Jay Fellows's work is interesting and has caused much controversy among Ruskin scholars. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: John Ruskin (1863)

Series

Works by John Ruskin

The King of the Golden River (1850) 832 copies
On Art and Life (2004) 640 copies
The Elements of Drawing (1904) 295 copies
The Stones of Venice (1900) 177 copies
Unto This Last (1899) 168 copies
Traffic (1600) 162 copies
The Crown of Wild Olive (1885) 128 copies
Modern Painters (1856) 114 copies
The Queen of the Air (1869) 107 copies
The Lamp of Memory (2008) 107 copies
Mornings in Florence (1875) 106 copies
Praeterita/Dilecta (2005) 98 copies
The Ethics of the Dust (1865) 92 copies
Ruskin Today (1964) 70 copies
Selections and Essays (1918) 48 copies
The Two Paths (1859) 42 copies
The Bible of Amiens (1997) 41 copies
Precious thoughts (1897) 30 copies
The Nature of Gothic (1899) 28 copies
Time and tide (1872) 26 copies
Fors Clavigera (1899) 26 copies
Selections From the Works of John Ruskin (1908) — Author — 25 copies
The works of John Ruskin (1885) 25 copies
The Poetry of Architecture (1893) 23 copies
Pre-Raphaelitism (1906) 18 copies
The Harbours of England (2007) 18 copies
The Order of Release (1947) 15 copies
Frondes Agrestes (1893) 11 copies
Modern Painters [abridged edition] (2000) — Author — 10 copies
On Genius (On Series) (2011) 10 copies
Ruskin on Turner (1990) 10 copies
Poems (1900) 9 copies
The Eagle's Nest (2009) 9 copies
Beauty and Nature (2010) 7 copies
Kuninkaitten aarteet (1985) 7 copies
On the old road (2008) 6 copies
Selections from Ruskin (1927) 6 copies
Ecrits sur les Alpes (2013) 5 copies
Venice Approached (1992) 5 copies
Verona and Other Lectures (1894) 5 copies
TEXTOS SOBRE NATURALEZA (1900) 4 copies
Titian (1911) 4 copies
The King of the Golden River [play] (1992) — Original story — 4 copies
Viaggio in Italia (2002) 4 copies
Fors Clavigera. Vol. II (1896) 3 copies
Susam ve Zambaklar (2013) 3 copies
Opere (1987) 2 copies
Work 2 copies
Natura 2 copies
Of queens' gardens (2010) 2 copies
How to See (2013) 2 copies
The Pocket Ruskin (1907) 2 copies
Ruskin as literary critic (1969) 2 copies
Turner (2023) 2 copies
Työ, talous ja sielu (2021) 1 copy
Die Steine von Venedig (2018) 1 copy
Sur Turner (1983) 1 copy
Selections 1 copy
Vrednosti 1 copy
John Ruskin (2012) 1 copy

Associated Works

Essays: English and American (1910) — Contributor — 600 copies
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 550 copies
The Victorian Fairytale Book (1988) — Contributor — 461 copies
Critical Theory Since Plato (1971) — Contributor, some editions — 398 copies
The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales (1993) — Contributor — 365 copies
Architectural Theory: From the Renaissance to the Present (2003) — Contributor — 281 copies
Prose of the Victorian Period (1938) — Contributor — 216 copies
The Golden Treasury of Children's Literature Set (1961) — Contributor — 209 copies
A Treasury of Fantasy (1981) — Contributor — 185 copies
Love Letters (1996) — Contributor — 180 copies
The Portable Victorian Reader (1972) — Contributor — 176 copies
A Documentary History of Art, Volume 3 (1966) — Contributor — 152 copies
The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and Other Fairy Tales (1964) — Contributor — 143 copies
Victorian Fairy Tales: The Revolt of the Fairies and Elves (1987) — Contributor — 126 copies
Victorian Fairy Tales (2014) — Contributor — 86 copies
The Junior Classics Volume 06: Old-Fashioned Tales (1912) — Contributor — 47 copies
Prose and Poetry for Appreciation (1934) — Contributor — 44 copies
Classic Essays in English (1961) — Contributor — 22 copies
German popular stories : translated from the Kinder und haus Märchen (1823) — Introduction, some editions — 17 copies
Masters of British Literature, Volume B (2007) — Contributor — 16 copies
I Preraffaelliti (1974) — Illustrator — 15 copies
Fairy Poems (2023) — Contributor — 13 copies
The Religion of Beauty: Selections from the Aesthetes (1950) — Contributor — 11 copies
Englische Essays aus drei Jahrhunderten (1980) — Contributor — 10 copies
An Adult's Garden of Bloomers (1966) — Contributor — 7 copies

Tagged

19th century (268) aesthetics (121) anthology (409) architecture (387) art (525) art criticism (54) art history (169) biography (67) British literature (54) children (63) children's (72) children's literature (56) classics (78) criticism (75) diary (128) English literature (123) essays (382) fairy tales (286) fantasy (174) fiction (312) Folio Society (54) folklore (58) Harvard Classics (80) history (151) Italy (71) John Ruskin (62) Kindle (57) letters (50) literary criticism (81) literature (240) non-fiction (329) philosophy (195) poetry (80) Ruskin (194) short stories (125) theory (50) to-read (364) unread (63) Venice (114) Victorian (143)

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Ruskin, O Ruskin, how oft I find
Thy languid musings echo in my mind!
 
Flagged
therebelprince | 2 other reviews | Oct 24, 2023 |
I've been reading essays from this bit by bit for quite some time. I really wish I'd made updates for each essay, because some were really extraordinary (commentaries on Gothic architecture), some were fascinating insights into the history of economics (Ruskin was an Adam Smith contemporary), and some were... just... huh (his fiction).
 
Flagged
mmparker | Oct 24, 2023 |
Ruskin, again, came across to me as an opinionated bigot who was very pleased with himself and whom I would not have liked at all. Yes, he wrote and lectured some 150 years ago, and our social mores have changed considerably, but he annoyed me. Perhaps I might have enjoyed him as a lecturer, but the way these essays were presented (presumably "as Written") I very quickly got so disturbed that I could not follow his points. His continued use of phrases and clauses in apposition ruined any flow of information. They made the essays virtually unreadable. Even the book's editor added 28 pages of notes to explain what Ruskin was saying. The "Brief Sketch of the Author's Life" include was somewhat illuminating. The added commentary "Ruskin as Economist" was needed - to explain why Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch added the collection of essays to his Kings Treasuries of Literature.… (more)
 
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gmillar | 2 other reviews | Oct 22, 2023 |

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Works
431
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Rating
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ISBNs
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