Unto This Last and Other Writings
John Ruskin - Author
ISBN 9780140432114 | 368 pages | 04 Feb 1986 | Penguin Classics | 5.07 x 7.79in | 18 - AND UP
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The most influential art theorist and critic of his age, an outstanding man of letters, a sensitive painter and draughtsman, Ruskin's social criticism shocked and angered the establishment and many of his admirers.
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Clive Wilmer
First and foremost an outcry against injustice and inhumanity, Unto this Last is also a closely argued assault on the science of political economy, which dominated the Victorian period. Ruskin was a profoundly conservative man who looked back to the Middle Ages as a Utopia, yet his ideas had a considerable influence on the British socialist movement. And in making his powerful moral and aesthetic case against the dangers of unhindered industrialization he was strangely prophetic. This volume shows the astounding range and depth of Ruskin's work, and in an illuminating introduction the editor reveals the consistency of Ruskin's philosophy and his adamant belief that questions of economics, art and science could not be separated from questions of morality. In Ruskin's words, 'There is no Wealth but Life.'
Introduction The King of the Golden River From The Stones of Venice, Volume II From The Two Paths From Modern Painters, Volume V Unto This Last From The Crown of Wild Olive From Sesame and Lilies From Fors Clavigera Notes Proust declared of Ruskin: ‘He will teach me, for is not he, too, in some degree the Truth?’, and Gandhi wrote, ‘Unto this Last captured me and made me transform my life.’ |
