Praeterita: Introduction by Timothy Hilton

Synopsis

As a memoir elevated to the level of fine art, John Ruskin&’s Praeterita stands alongside The Education of Henry Adams and the confessions of Augustine, Rousseau, and Tolstoy. A luminous account of his childhood and youth, Praeterita is the last major work of the revolutionary nineteenth-century critic. Written in the lucid intervals between the bouts of dementia that haunted his final years, Praeterita tells the story of Ruskin&’s early life—the formation of his taste and intellect through education, travels in Europe, and encounters with great works of art and artists. In abandoning the traditional linear mode of autobiography, Ruskin opened up the form and was an important influence on Proust. He also provided a vivid, detailed portrait of pre-Victorian and Victorian England that is as indispensable an account of its era as Samuel Pepys&’s diary is of England in the seventeenth century. This edition of Praeterita is accompanied by Dilecta, Ruskin&’s own selection from his letters, diaries, and other writings. In these more private writings we get a fascinating glimpse of genius as it flickers in and out of madness. Together these two works illuminate the life and mind of a towering intellect who left an extraordinary mark on the history of aesthetics and culture, and on the very course of autobiography. With a new Introduction by Tim Hilton

Copyright:

2005

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

632 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780375712647

Related ISBNs:

9781400043170

Publisher:

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Date of Addition:

03/05/25

Copyrighted By:

Tim Hilton

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Biographies and Memoirs

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Introduction by:

Timothy Hilton