John Dixon Hunt's Doubts on Accuracy of Ruskin's Memory

Paul L. Sawyer, Professor of English, Cornell University

Footnote 1, Chapter 2, of the author's Ruskin's Poetic Argument: The Design of the Major Works, which Cornell University Press published in 1985. It appears in the Victorian web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.

  1. not in print version indicates a link to material not in the original print version. [GPL].

John Dixon Hunt in The Wider Sea: A Life of John Ruskin (New York: Viking, 1982), 127, questions the accuracy of Ruskin's memory regarding the circumstances. There is no mention of the church service in the diaries, and at any rate Gordon was with the Ruskins at about the time the event was supposed to have occurred; but, as always, Ruskin's memories bear an emotional, if not a factual, accuracy.

Victorian Website Overview Ruskin materials Contents

Last modified December 2000