RUSKIN AND VICTORIAN INTELLECTUAL LIFE

Manuscripts of John Ruskin (1819-1900) from the Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster

Part 1: Diaries, 1835-1888

Part 2: Correspondence with Joan Severn, 1864-1899

Chronology

1819 born, 8 February, 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London, the only child of John James Ruskin (wine importer) and Margaret Ruskin (née Cock), who brings him up an Evangelical

1824 ‘first memory of life’ at Friar’s Crag, Derwent Water, in the Lake District

1829 poem ‘On Skiddaw and Derwent-Water’ is published in the Spiritual Times

1833 first sees the Alps

1835 first sees Venice

1836 matriculates at Christ Church College, Oxford; resides in Oxford until 1840

1837 The Poetry of Architecture in the Architectural Magazine (-1838)

1839 wins Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford with Salsette and Elephanta; meets Wordsworth

1840 following his rejection by Adèle Domecq (the daughter of his father’s partner), illness necessitates a long Italian tour with his parents (-1841); meets Turner

1841 King of the Golden River – written for Euphemia Gray

1842 takes BA at Oxford; the family moves from Herne Hill to Denmark Hill, Camberwell

1843 Modern Painters – a defence of Turner (four further volumes – 1860)

1844 Buys The Slave Ship from Turner

1845 sees architecture with new eyes on an Italian tour without his parents

1848 marries Euphemia (‘Effie’) Chalmers Gray at Perth

1849 The Seven Lamps of Architecture; visits Venice

1850 Poems

1851 The Stones of Venice (two further volumes, 1853); Pre-Raphaelitism; Turner dies

1854 marriage is annulled; returns to Denmark Hill; teaches drawing at Working Men’s College, London;

achieves international fame as critic; befriends Rosssetti

1856 Meets Charles Eliot Norton

1857 Elements of Drawing

1858 turning point in his religious development during a stay in Turin; meets Rose La Touche, aged ten; elected one of the first Honorary Students of Christ Church

1860 serialization of Unto this Last is stopped prematurely in the Cornhill Magazine

1864 on the death of John James Ruskin he inherits a fortune, much of which is devoted to his artistic, educational and social projects in later years

1865 Sesame and Lilies

1866 Proposes marriage to Rose La Touche (now 18)

1869 The Queen of the Air; elected the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford – the lectures are published

1871 Fors Clavigera (-1884); initiates the St George’s Fund (later the Guild of St George); Margaret Ruskin dies; acquires Brantwood on Coniston Water, in the Lake District

1874 turning point in his religious development during a stay at Assisi

1875 Mornings in Florence (-1877); Deucalion (-1883); founds St George’s Museum, Sheffield; Rose La Touche dies

1877 St Mark’s Rest (-1885)

1878 first major mental breakdown; resigns the Slade Professorship; Whistler vs Ruskin libel action

1880 The Bible of Amiens (-1885)

1883 resumes Slade Professorship; lectures on The Art of England

1884 The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century

1885 Praeterita (-1889), an incomplete autobiography

1888 last Continental tour

1889 mental incapacity ends his career; lives in retirement at Brantwood with his cousin, Joan Ruskin

Severn, and her family

1899 read by Marcel Proust, who later translates The Bible of Amiens and Sesame and Lilies

1900 dies, 20 January, at Brantwood and is buried in Coniston churchyard

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