Ruskin has suffered lately from a superfluity of writers and a deficiency of readers so that, although Ruskin needs no apology, another book about him requires at least an explanation. The popular desertion of a good writer always produces a measure of attention from acolytes who would win back the lost flock. Although interest in Ruskin is not quite as low as it was when Sir Kenneth Clark wrote of booksellers who told him that, when they bought job lots, Ruskin was thrown out like dog-fish from the catch, he is still not widely read. One of the reasons often given for their foolhardiness by writers upon him is a worthy desire to restore him to wider public knowledge and attention. The same ambition explains a well-known tendency among them (which I share) to quote from him too extensively. It stems from a wish to show off his astonishing style and is, at the same time, an acknowledgement by the writer of his inescapable addiction to it.

Like the readership, the number of writers upon Ruskin has considerably diminished. There were once shoals of them, following the current of his vast and popular reputation and paying their own earnest homage to ‘the master’. There may be more interest now in the United States, in France (possibly the legacy of Proust) and in Japan, than there is in England. The nature of the interest has changed from time to time as different aspects of Ruskin have attracted attention. His work has always appeared to present two sides and the interest shown in each has alternated with the other.