SOURCE: "Notes on the Construction of The Stones of Venice," in Studies in Ruskin: Essays in Honor of Van Akin Burd, edited by Robert Rhodes and Del Ivan Janick, Ohio University Press, 1982, pp. 131-50.

In the following essay, Hewison analyzes The Stones of Venice in terms of the politics, economics, and religious beliefs of the mid-1800s.

The Stones of Venice is arguably Ruskin's most successful work. It is also arguably his most important. It is the only one of his books for which he had a predetermined plan, a plan that he largely carried out. It is the only major work in which he began by saying what he was going to say and then, with minor qualifications, said it. Anyone reading Chapter 1 of Volume I, "The Quarry," cannot, if he or she is at all familiar with the works of Ruskin, fail to be struck by...