Abstract

"This is the second and final volume of Tim Hilton's life of John Ruskin, one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the nineteenth century. Ruskin was the most prolific English writer there has ever been. His published works alone number some 250 titles and this is besides lectures, diaries, correspondence and tens of thousands of letters that remain unpublished. This is the first biography of Ruskin to return to the original source material, some of which has been read for the first time by the author." "It begins in 1859 with Ruskin, famous as the author of Modern Painters, The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice, living in south London with his parents, his disastrous marriage over, continuing to write and travel and to tutor, amongst other pupils, Rose La Touche, a girl of ten, with whom he slowly fell in love. This relationship would develop into one of the saddest love affairs of literary history ending in tragedy in 1875, and from which Ruskin would never recover." "From 1875 onwards Ruskin was plagued by bouts of insanity and despair that would lead to total breakdown for the last ten years of his life, but, as Hilton shows, the later years, far from being a period merely of decline, were a time when the great man's intellect and imagination reached new heights. It was in these years that Ruskin produced Praeterita and most of Fors Clavigera the series of monthly letters to British workers which Hilton discusses in the context of the writer's life." "As Slade Professor of Art at the University of Oxford he founded his drawing schools, today the Ruskin School of Art. His books and lectures were on subjects ranging from history of art to social reform to botany."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.