John Ruskin Papers

Held at: University of Manchester, John Rylands University Library of Manchester
Reference and contact details: GB 133 RUS
Title: John Ruskin Papers
Dates of Creation: 1813-1952
Extent: 0.21 cu.m
Creator: Ruskin, John, 1819-1900, critic
Level of Description: fonds
Language of Material: English
Published by: John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH, United Kingdom
phone: +44 (0) 161-834-5343
fax: +44 (0) 161-834-5574
e-mail: spcoll72@fs1.li.man.ac.uk

Administrative/Biographical History

John Ruskin was the most influential art critic of the Victorian age. His literary output was enormous and he had a remarkable influence on public opinion.

John Ruskin was born in 1819, the only child of John James Ruskin, a wealthy wine merchant and his wife, Margaret. Ruskin remained close to his parents for the rest of their lives. He was much influenced by his mother's strong protestant beliefs, and his father's literary interests. His parents encouraged Ruskin's love of drawing and took him on numerous Continental holidays, which awoke his passionate interest in the natural landscape. He was educated at home, before going to Christ Church, Oxford, where he did not find the curriculum to his taste.

In 1843 he published the first volume of Modern Painters (5 volumes 1843-1860), which began as a defence of the artist, J M W Turner, but grew into an exposition of Ruskin's principles of art. He later made an equally passionate defence of the Pre-Raphaelites, who had been initially dismissed by most established critics. Ruskin also had a great interest in medieval architecture. His European travels had introduced him to the architecture of France and northern Italy, and aware of the threat to it from neglect, unsympathetic restoration and modernisation, set out to describe it to his readers in great detail and aesthetic sensitivity. He was a champion of the gothic style, which he expounded in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851-3), believing it to be the expression of man's wonder at God's creation.

Ruskin was a critic in the broadest sense of the term. He believed that art, morality and politics were all inter-connected, and his musings ranged effortlessly across these subjects. From the late 1850s, his writings took on a more political tone, as he attempted to combat the influence of conventional economics and industrial capitalism. His belief in the natural dignity of labour and an economic system based on use rather than profit was summed up in Unto this Last (1860) and Essays on Political Economy (1862-3). Ruskin's ideals were Christian and feudal rather than socialist; nevertheless he influenced many later socialists and he shared their concern to improve the conditions of the working classes. He addressed a number of his works to working people, such as Time and Tide (1867) and the serial, Fors Clavigera (1871-8). He also founded a political group, the Guild of St George, which attempted to put some of his ideas into practice by setting up utopian communities. Inheriting a considerable fortune from his father, Ruskin was a generous patron, who subsidised many worthy causes. Many however found Ruskin's political views increasingly eccentric, and his influence waned from the later 1870s.

Ruskin continued to influence public taste, following his appointment as first Slade professor of art at Oxford University in 1870. He threw himself into this work with characteristic intensity, establishing a school of drawing, donating a number of works of art to the University, and attracting great crowds to his lectures. Several volumes of the lectures were later published. Disagreements with senior University figures saw him resign the professorship twice in 1878 and following a brief return in 1885.

Ruskin's private life was unhappy. He married Euphemia Chalmers Gray in 1847, but she left him for the artist, John Everett Millais, and they were divorced in 1854 on grounds of non-consummation. Ruskin formed a number of passionate friendships with young women after this, the most important of which was with Rose La Touche, to whom he proposed marriage in 1866 when she was eighteen. Her parents opposed the match, and she died, after succumbing to madness, in 1875. By the late 1870s Ruskin was also showing signs of a mental illness, which was to become progressively worse in the following decade. Although he published an uncompleted autobiography, Praeterita (1885-1889), his literary output diminished greatly after 1880. He lived increasingly as a recluse and invalid at his home, Brantwood on Coniston Water, cared for by his cousin and heir, Joan Severn and her husband, Arthur, together with his secretary, W.G.Collingwood. Ruskin died on 20 January 1900 and was buried in Coniston churchyard.

Ruskin was a remarkably successful critic, who influenced by the style as well as the substance of his writings. One of the best-selling writers of his age, Ruskin had few peers as a prose stylist. He was a compelling public speaker and an active man of affairs. His appreciation of art was heightened by his gifts as a draughtman and artist (many of his works contained his own illustrations). A talented geologist, he had a remarkable talent for observation and description of natural phenomena.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection is an artificial one, acquired through donations and purchases from several sources.

Scope and Content

Manuscript collection comprising over 2,000 items relating to John Ruskin (1819-1900), his work and his contemporaries, complementing the printed Ruskin Collection. The collection sheds light on Ruskin himself and his works, his personal affairs and his domestic and financial problems. There is also a section comprising some 500 items relating to Ruskin's cousin and heir, Joan Severn (née Askew), and her husband Arthur, which include detailed accounts of Ruskin's illnesses and death, with correspondence between the Severns and the eminent pathologist, (Sir) John Simon.

Ruskin's own letters fall into three categories: those written to friends and relations, those dealing primarily with the Guild of St George, and those concerned with the arts and with Ruskin's books. Major correspondents include William Henry Harrison (his first editor), Henry Jowett (printer and manager of Hazell, Watson & Viney of Aylesbury), Peter Bayne (author and editor of the Edinburgh Witness and the Weekly Review ), the booksellers F.S. Ellis and David White, Ralph Nicholson Wornum (Keeper of the National Gallery), his cousin George Richardson, Mrs Fanny Talbot (Ruskin's close friend and patron of the Guild), his god-daughter (Emma) Constance Oldham, and Miss Blanche Atkinson of Liverpool. In addition to letters there are manuscript fragments, photographs, business papers, and papers of Ruskin relating to Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).

System of Arrangement

The collection is arranged as follows:

  • Eng Ms 1161Fanny Talbot 1874-89
  • Eng Ms 1162 --Blanche Atkinson 1873- 84
  • Eng Ms 1163Quartus Talbot [son of Fanny] 1874- 82
  • Eng Ms 1164Guild of St George 1881-1952,
  • Eng Ms 1165Franscesa Alexander 1885-92
  • Eng Ms 1166Miscellanea 1851-93
  • Eng Ms 1193Mrs and Miss L Strode 1883-6
  • Eng Ms 1245Peter Bayne 1885-7
  • Eng Ms 1246George Richardson1867-76
  • Eng Ms 1247Anna Oldham 1860-88
  • Eng Ms 1248Constance Oldham 1866- 89
  • Eng Ms 1249R N Wornum and Henry Jowett 1857-1887
  • Eng Ms 1250W H Harrison c.1845-1870
  • Eng Ms 1251F S Ellis and David White [Ruskin's publishers] 1868-84
  • Eng Ms 1252Arthur and Joan Severn 1873- 88
  • Eng Ms 1253Anna Blunden (1855)-58
  • Eng Ms 1254Miscellaneous Letters 1842- 87
  • Eng Ms 1255Miscellaneous Holograph Leaves c.1862- 97
  • Eng Ms 1256Miscellaneous Papers 1861-1907
  • Eng Ms 1257John James Ruskin and Margaret Ruskin 1813-66
  • Eng Ms 1258Miscellaneous Letters 1837-1893 (predom. 1880s)
  • Eng Ms 1259Sir Walter Scott 1832-84
  • Eng Ms 1260Severn-Simon Letters 1878-1902
  • Eng Ms 1261Severn-La Touche Letters 1876-1890
  • Eng Ms 1262Severn-Cowper-Temple Letters c.1874-c.1890
  • Eng Ms 1263Miscellaneous Letters to Joan Severn 1878-1919
  • Eng Ms 1264Arthur Severn Correspondence 1878-1915
  • Eng Ms 1265Joseph Severn Correspondence 1842-7
  • Eng Ms 1266Ernest Chesneau Letters 1882-5
  • Eng Ms 1267W.J.Stillman Letters (?)1860-85
  • Eng Ms 1304Sarah Corlass 1830-78

Finding Aids

recorded in published handlist of English Manuscripts (English MSS 1161-1166, 1193, 1245-1267, 1304).

Existence of Copies

Published microfilm: John Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Arts and Crafts Movement: the Ruskin, Holman Hunt, Fairfax Murray, Spielmann and Related Collections from the John Rylands University Library, Manchester (Woodbridge: Research Publications, 1990).

Related Units of Description

JRULM holds related material in the Fairfax Murray Papers, the Holman Hunt Papers, the Spielmann Collection and the John Ruskin Book Collection.

Associated Material

Ruskin's papers have been widely dispersed. The following repositories have custody of his papers: Lancaster University: Ruskin Library; Ruskin Museum, Coniston (ref.: Con RM); Cumbria Record Office, Kendal (ref: WDSo/106); Cambridge University: Fitzwilliam Museum; Ruskin Gallery Collection of the Guild of St George, Sheffield; Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts (ref: MSS Eng lett c 32-52; Eng misc c 269-70; d 652-53); Strathclyde University Archives; University of Texas at Austin: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Library; Columbia University Libraries: Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Princeton University Library; The Huntington Library; University of Arizona Library, Special Collections; Duke University: William R Perkins Library; Boston Public Library; Hull University, Brynmor Jones Library (ref. DP/7); Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia; New York Public Library; Library of Congress, Manuscript Division

Publication Note

The Ruskin papers have been used extensively in the following articles by Margaret E Spence; see Margaret E. Spence, "The Guild of St George: Ruskin's attempt to translate his ideas into practice" Bulletin of the John Rylands Library xl, 147-201; "Ruskin's friendship with Fanny Talbot" Bulletin of the John Rylands Library xlii, 453-80; "Ruskin's correspondence with his god-daughter Constance Oldham" Bulletin of the John Rylands Library xliii, 520-37.