William Morris and John Ruskin

John Blewitt is an independent scholar having worked in further, higher, international and adult education for many years. He was Head of Lifelong Learning at Exeter and Aston Universities. He is the author and editor of many works on education, environmental sustainability and politics including Understanding Sustainable Development (Routledge 3rd edition, 2018) and Media, Ecology and Conservation (Green Books, 2010) and The Ecology of Learning (Earthscan, 2006). He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Schumacher Institute.The William Morris Society exists to promote and celebrate the life, work and ideas of William Morris (1834-1896). The breadth of Morris’s ideas and activities bring together those who are interested in him as a designer, craftsman, poet, and political activist, and who admire his robust and generous personality and his creative energy. His ideas on how we live and how we might live, on creative work, ecology and conservation, politics and the place of the arts in our lives remain as stimulating now as they were over a century ago. Established in 1955, membership of the Society is open to all and has a worldwide fellowship. www.williammorrissociety.orgContributions by: Sara Atwood, John Blewitt, Chris Brooks, Robert Brownell, David Elliot, David Faldet, Peter Faulkner, Lawrence Goldman, Jacques Migeon, Michael Naslas, Evelyn J. Phimister and Christopher Shaw.

• The William Morris SocietyNotes on Contributors1 Introduction - John Blewitt2 Ruskin and Morris - Peter Faulkner3 John Ruskin: patron or patriarch? - Robert Brownell4 ‘“This link between the Earth and Man”: Ruskin, Morris, and Education’ -Sara Atwood5 Red House and Ruskin - Jacques Migeon6 Morris and Pre-Raphaelitism - Peter Faulkner7 Ruskin and Fairfax Murray - David Elliot8 John Ruskin, William Morris and the Illuminated Manuscript - Evelyn J. Phimister9 Medievalism in Morris’s Aesthetic Theory - Michael Naslas10 ‘Bawling the right road’: Morris and Ruskinian social criticism - Chris Brooks11 From Art to Politics: John Ruskin and William Morris - Lawrence Goldman12 Laxley Mill: Ruskin’s Parallel to Merton Abbey - David Faldet13 William Morris and the Division of Labour: the idea of work in News from Nowhere - Christopher Shaw14 John Ruskin’s Tory Paternalism - John BlewittIndex

This is a book to be considered carefully, then, for its multiple ways of approaching these two men and their works.There are no attempts to force a synergy between the two where none exists; differences are fully acknowledged and fruitfully explored, while similarities are teased out, considered from all angles and used to shed a light on these ‘eminent Victorians’.