John Ruskin | Autograph letter signed, probably to the editor, Manchester City News, 7th April 1884

John Ruskin

Autograph letter signed, probably to the editor, Manchester City News, 7th April 1884

important autograph article, probably his retained draft, signed ("JRuskin"), defending the Lake District against the encroachment of the railway, written as a letter [to the Editor of the Manchester City News] with autograph revisions throughout, 2 pages, text on rectos only, folio, Brantwood, 7 April 1884, rolled, slightly soiled

"Take for example this singular unanimity of the inhabitants of Ambleside -- that is to say, accurately, of the innkeepers, shopkeepers, guides, and other ministers to the strangers in Ambleside, for a railway from Lakeside into their midst. I have long known their wish with anticipation of its probable success; and having seen the results of railway enterprise from the beginning, can perhaps carry forward this 'progress' of improvement in my imagination to a point beyond even the hopes of your philanthropic correspondent."

A remarkable document in which Ruskin takes up the cudgel from Wordsworth, who had vented his protest against the Lakeland railway forty years before; one which also uncannily anticipates the environmental and architectural satires of Lancaster and Betjeman as well as heralding Ruskin's fervent aversion to industrial capitalism and status as an exceptionally early environmentalist campaigner.