20. Ruskin’s Coins

Among the numerous treasures Ruskin acquired for himself and the public in the course of his long life, from books to botanical specimens, shells to stones, and manuscripts to minerals, his horde of coins is one of the least well-known and appreciated of his...

19. Global Ruskin: the return to nature (part 1)

In the first of a new series of occasional blogs exploring Ruskin’s global reach, I focus on how Ruskin was celebrated as an Apostle of Beauty calling on Europe to reject modern industrial capitalism and return to nature. A brief look at two Czech readers of Ruskin...

18. The Ruskinian Benefactor: Florence Bennett

To Dr Sara Atwood, Scholar, Teacher, and Dear Friend. Early in 1885 John Ruskin’s utopian society, the Guild of St George, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, issued a Master’s Report. In an account appended by senior trustee, George Baker (1825-1910),...

17. The Ruskinian Industrialist

This is a year of Ruskinian anniversaries. Two of them—the 150th anniversary of John Ruskin’s Guild of St George, and the centenary of the death of the pioneering Yorkshire businessman, George Thomson—have prompted me to write, and the Guild to publish, a new...

16. The Ruskinian Shopkeeper

It is one of the unaccountable facts of Ruskin scholarship that many of John Ruskin’s keenest admirers have barely registered in the histories of his influence. A notable example is Stephen Rowland (1841-1940) (pictured below), an early and long-serving Companion of...