Letters to Blanche Atkinson

The material comprises 148 letters from John Ruskin to Miss Blanche Atkinson (1847-1917) as follows::

• (a) numbers 1-140, letters from Ruskin to Miss Atkinson, mostly addressed to her at 19 Edge Lane, Liverpool, 25 March 1873-November 1884. The majority were written between 1873 and 1875;
• (b) numbers 141-148, letters from Ruskin to Miss Atkinson (April 1873-December 1878); these originally formed part of the collection donated by Mrs Rawnsley (numbers 1-140 above), as the series of numbers on the envelopes indicates.

Numbers 1-140 were donated to the John Rylands Library by Mrs Rawnsley in March 1953. Numbers 141-148 were acquired from various sources, namely:

• numbers 141-142 (April and November 1873), from the Rev. G. Shaw Hewins, August 1963;
• number 143 (27 December 1877), from Mr Loveluck of Wallasey, January 1964;
• numbers 144-148, July 1873 - December 1878), from Mrs L.M. Roberts, January 1964, formerly owned by her aunt, Miss M.J. Owens.

The letters are discussed in Margaret E. Spence, 'Ruskin's correspondence with Miss Blanche Atkinson', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 42 (1959-60), pp. 194-219.