Our Fathers Have Told Us, Part I

John Ruskin (1819-1900) is best known for his work as an art critic and social critic, but is remembered as an author, poet and artist as well. Ruskin's essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Ruskin's range was vast. He wrote over 250 works which started from art history, but expanded to cover topics ranging over science, geology, ornithology, literary criticism, the environmental effects of pollution, and mythology. In 1848, he married Effie Gray, for whom he wrote the early fantasy novel The King of the Golden River. After his death Ruskin's works were collected together in a massive "library edition," completed in 1912 by his friends Edward Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. Its index is famously elaborate, attempting to articulate the complex interconnectedness of his thought. His other works include: Giotto and His Works in Padua (1854), The Harbours of England (1856), "A Joy for Ever" (1857), The Ethics of the Dust (1866) and Hortus Inclusus.