John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education

Valerie Purton is emerita professor of Victorian literature at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, and has published widely on the Victorians. She is the author of Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition (2012); editor of the Everyman Dombey and Son (1997) and Darwin, Tennyson and Their Readers (2013); and co-author of the Palgrave Literary Dictionary of Tennyson (2010) and Poems by Two Brothers: The Poetry of Tennyson’s Father and Uncle (1993). Purton has been editor of the Tennyson Research Bulletin since 2011.

"A valuable new vantage on Ruskin’s contributions to a trans-European conversation among writers, intellectuals, and educational professionals concerning educational philosophy, instruction, school organization, and the social benefits of educational improvements during the nineteenth century. — Sarah Winter, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Vol. 47, No. 1: Spring 2020"

• List of Figures; Foreword by Francis O’Gorman; Introduction, Valerie Purton; Section A. Changing the World; 1. ‘An Enormous Difference between Knowledge and Education’: What Ruskin Can Teach Us, Sara Atwood; 2. ‘Souls of Good Quality’: Ruskin, Tolstoy and Education, Stuart Eagles; 3. ‘To Teach Them How to Dress’: Ruskin, Clothing and Lessons in Society, Rachel Dickinson; 4. Mad Governess or Wise Counsellor? Sesame and Lilies Revisited, Jan Marsh; Section B. Libraries and the Arts; 5 ‘A Very Precious Book’: Ruskin’s Exegesis of the Psalms in Rock Honeycomb and Fors Clavigera, Emma Sdegno; 6. ‘Our Household Catalogue of Reference’: Ruskin’s Lesson Photographs of 1875–76, Stephen Wildman; 7. Ruskin, Music and the Health of the Nation, Paul Jackson; 8. Ruskin and the Fantastic, Edward James; Section C. Christianity and Apocalypse; 9. Ruskin’s ‘Many-Sided Soulfulness’, Keith Hanley; 10. ‘Catastrophe Will Come’: Ruskin, Nation and Apocalypse, Andrew Tate; Notes on Contributors; Index.