John Ruskin: The Later Years Volume 2

Selected by New York Times Book Review as a Best Book Since 2000

"The second part of Tim Hilton's wonderful protracted wrestling match with the surprising life and times of John Ruskin makes a captivating story of the great Victorian aesthete's slow drag into grand private despairs, ranting public dyspepsias and final madness. . . . Taken together, [John Ruskin: The Early Years and John Ruskin: The Later Years]constitute the finest and fairest life of Ruskin that has yet been written. It is likely to remain the standard work for a long time to come. . . . To every phase of Ruskin's highly variegated literary oeuvre Mr. Hilton brings a judicious and informed critical intelligence. It has taken 100 years, but in Tim Hilton, Ruskin has found the champion he deserves."--Hilton Kramer, Wall Street Journal

"Magisterial."--William Packer, Financial Times

"A work of astoundingly vigorous biographical assimilation and fine critical wisdom. Here's Ruskin's immense labor--all those words, all that hoarding, gathering and cataloging of rocks, people, pictures and impressions--made comprehensible and happily handleable. . . . 'There is . . . a ray of real Heaven in poor Ruskin.' If we get any sense of what Carlyle meant by that, it will be because of the great rays of light Hilton's admirable work now sheds on the man."--Valentine Cunningham, New York Times Book Review

"To those of us who know our Ruskin mainly from snippets, Hilton provides welcome guidance and encouragement. . . . Can any biography, no matter how fine and authoritative, repair the crumbled edifice that is John Ruskin? Perhaps not. But true scholarship needs no justification at the bookstores. It is its own reward. Tim Hilton has obviously spent much of his maturity in the study of Ruskin's life and work; his 1,000 pages will be honored and consulted after most of this years' fast-moving bestsellers have long been forgotten. He tells, moreover, as enthralling a story as any triple-decker Victorian sensation novel, especially for anyone who has ever loved hopelessly or suffered debilitating depression while trying to get on with his daily work. . . . Who wouldn't want to know more about such a man? And in Tim Hilton's two volume life, we have the means and the opportunity to do so. Seize them."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

"Opening when its subject is 40 and a rising authority on aesthetics, Volume 2 of this vast biography charts Ruskin's unraveling from passionate cataloger (rocks, plants, buildings, paintings, clouds) to tragic obsessive (irrigation, drainage, running water, little girls)."--New York Times, "And Bear in Mind"

"An inspiring volume. . . . We are rewarded with [a biography that] radiate[s] the energy and magnificence of its subject."--Peter Ackroyd, Times (UK)

"Ruskin emerges from Hilton's magnum opus as the ideal teacher: kindly, exacting, temperate, able to draw on an inexhaustible store of intellectual example."--Anthony Lane, New Yorker

"Simply magnificent: one of the great modern literary biographies."--Clive Wilmer, Times Literary Supplement

"What a golden age this is for readers of literary biography! . . . Just as stupendous in research and intelligence as volume one was. . . . The sheer hard work that goes into a book like this makes some of our critical snobberies and categories look silly. And when the research surfaces in prose of this quality, then it merits the encomium 'work of art' very much more, I think, than is the case with a thousand or two of this year's novels and books of poetry."--Don Coles, Toronto Globe and Mail

"A masterpiece of investigative scholarship and a work of generous and engrossing humanity."--John Carey, Sunday Times

"Mr. Hilton's book provides important information about Ruskin and his family context and is essential reading for those interested in the sage's final years."--Albion

"The model biography of a cultural figure. The book is fluid for all its length, judicious about a notoriously fractious subject, and unpretentiously literate throughout. . . . The book is suffused with Hilton's intimate knowledge of Ruskin's enormous production, so at every point the narrative is telling us what we need to know--about the life to appreciate the work, about the work to appreciate the life, or about the culture to appreciate them both. Taken together, Hilton's two volumes constitute an amazingly organic achievement, a triumphant telling of one of the saddest stories ever told."--Dave Hickey, Art Forum

"Superb . . . beautifully written. . . . Ruskin was one of the towering figures of his age. He has received one of the towering biographies of ours."--Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Daily Mail

"[This book] is far and away the best biography of Ruskin. We understand the man--or at any rate many key aspects of the man--better than we have ever understood him before. . . . There are a great many pleasures and rewards in this deeply felt and often superbly achieved work of the biographer's art."--James Turner, Books & Culture

"A passionate . . . and remarkable book. . . . Convincing and poignant."--Sarah Quill, Literary Review

"Now that it is complete, Hilton's book takes its place among the foremost modern literary biographies."--John Gross, Sunday Telegraph

"A literary biography brimming over with detail and nuance."--Douglas Fetherling, Ottawa Citizen

"This second volume of Hilton's biography of Ruskin fulfils in every way the promise of the first. . . . Ruskin's prodigiously productive and poignantly troubled life has never been presented more responsibly or readably."--Choice

"Magnificent."--Guy Davenport, Harper's Magazine

"Hilton's research, years of reading Ruskin, and attention to detail make this biography very personal and readable--and probably the definitive account on Ruskin."--Library Journal

"An acute critic of Ruskin's writing, Hilton has fulfilled the biographer's job of giving us the man. He has done so magnificently. Having met Ruskin, we are free to turn to his writings, which will only deepen our sense of gratitude to Hilton for introducing us to this crucial character."--Tom D'Evelyn, Providence Sunday Journal

"Hilton's morbid fascination with Ruskin's descent into his long, precarious twilight will keep the reader turning the pages."--Publishers Weekly

Named a Notable Book for 2000 by the New York Times Book Review

Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2000 by Choice Magazine

Chosen as an Outstanding Book by University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries