Ruskin and the English Lakes

This 1901 book, by a pioneering conservationist, focuses on Ruskin's love for the Lake District, its landscapes and people.

Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (Author)

9781108036009, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 November 2011

278 pages, 10 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.36 kg

John Ruskin (1819–1900), the influential Victorian art critic and social theorist, lived in the Lake District for nearly 30 years. This biographical study, first published in 1901, focuses on the significance of the region in Ruskin's life and art. It begins with his first visit as a five-year-old, when he became ''a dedicated spirit' to the beauty and the wonders of Nature', and ends with accounts of his funeral and memorial at Coniston. It describes his commitment to the local people and their traditional crafts, and his relationship with the poet Wordsworth. The author, H. D. Rawnsley (1851–1920), was a clergyman, conservationist and keen art lover based in the Lake District who had been personally tutored by Ruskin and who was one of the founders, in 1884, of the heritage organisation that became the National Trust.

Prefatory note
1. Ruskin and the English lakes
2. Ruskin and the English lakes continued
3. Reminiscences of Ruskin among the peasantry of Coniston
4. At the Ruskin Exhibition, Coniston
5. Ruskin and the Home Art Industries in the Lake District
6. Ruskin and Wordsworth
7. Ruskin and Wordsworth continued
8. At Ruskin's funeral
9. The unveiling of the Ruskin memorial
10. The memorial cross at Coniston
Memorial poems
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]