The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings

by John D. Rosenberg, Herbert F. Tucker (Foreword)

First published in 1963, John D. Rosenberg's The Genius of John Ruskin aimed to make Ruskin's ideas and writings accessible to the modern reader, and it quickly became a classic. Long out of print, this important anthology is now available with a new foreword by Herbert F. Tucker and an expanded and updated bibliography by the author that takes into account recent Ruskin scholarship.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Literature, Art History

566 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 1998

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

In these essays Ruskin achieves a rhetorical delicacy that is matched only by his moral sophistication. The seminal essay on The Pathetic Fallacy is where he conjures the line:

Judge not the man and thus the nobleness of the delights, judge the nobleness of the delights and hence the nobleness of the man.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love, love, loved this! Only read about 7%: On the Nature of Gothic and Grotesque Renaissance, but will be holding onto my library copy and hopefully flipping through some more. Unpopular opinion but I guess I like Ruskin!

[Nev March · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each section is prefaced by a short intro from John D Rosenberg, author of The Darkenjng Glass. These orient one and enhance Ruskin’s sometimes obtuse, dense language. It is language so vivid that I have read some sections aloud, marveling at his faculty and the images he wrought.

“Reading Modern Painters still gives one new eyes; reading Fors Clavigera enlarges one’s insight into consciousness; and the message of Unto this Last, that we love one another, appears insane only in a world that is itself insane.”

Do other readers weep when they read such words?

[Devs38]

series of essays. Read some not all. march 2025

[James Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collected writings of the 19th century polymath. Inspirational in parts but dull in others. His writing improves over the years.

[Austen to Zafón]

WHY: I've been meaning to read Ruskin for some time now and mention of him in Isherwood's "A Single Man" reminded me. I'm not sure where to start, but this seems a likely place.

[Mark Van Aken Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can appeciate his genius, but I don't accept many of his conclusions.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

read "the stones of venice" and "the storm-cloud of the nineteenth century"