No Wealth But Life

John Ruskin

John Batchelor is Professor of English Literature at the University of Newcastle, having previously been a Fellow of New College Oxford. His previous biographies include books about Ruskin, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells and Conrad. He is editor of the literary magazine Modern Language Review (English and American Literature).

Ruskin, whose life spanned almost a century from 1819 to 1900, was one of the most influential cultural and intellectual figures of his age. He was fundamentally a post-Romantic visionary; this fact underlies his activities as art critic and writer on architecture and also his passionate advocacy of an alternative social model for England. There is no Wealth but Life, wrote Ruskin in his political essays of the 1860s. This new biography shows him as a whole, demonstrating that his seemingly disparate ideas accrue into a developed - though constantly evolving - vision of the good society, and that the public activity of the man was at every stage closely associated with his disastrous private life.

Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Fascinating new take on Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites, seen through the life of Pauline Trevelyan (1816-1866), who used her own brains and her husband's money to promote the careers of the finest painters and writers of High Victorian cultural life.

The perfect condensed account of Ruskin's life.

Altogether an inspiring volume, filled with scholarship and love.

Excellent new biographical study ... attractively written and well argued, it finds room for a good deal of picturesque detail.

A wonderful diary...the author has used to paint a portrait of an age and a woman... critical and touching.

John Batchelor is Professor of English Literature at the University of Newcastle, having previously been a Fellow of New College Oxford. His previous biographies include books about Ruskin, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells and Conrad, and he is working on a major biography of Tennyson. He is editor of of the literary magazine Modern Language Review (English and American Literature). 
From the reviews of his book on Ruskin (Chatto hardback, Vintage paperback): 
'The perfect condensed account of Ruskin's life' Alain de Botton, Daily Telegraph 
'Altogether an inspiring volume, filled with scholarship and love' Peter Ackroyd, The Times 
'Lucid, timely and important' Chris Woodhead, Mail on Sunday 
'Excellent new biographical study ... attractively written and well argued, it finds room for a good deal of picturesque detail' John Gross, Sunday Times

An entertaining account of an extraordinary cultural and historical event: - the establishment by one highly intelligent woman of a salon of the arts in a beautiful country house in Northumberland. Wallington Hall was remote from the major centres of artistic activity, such as London and Edinburgh. Yet Pauline Trevelyan single handedly made it the focus of High Victorian cultural life. Among those she attracted into her orbit were Ruskin, Swinburne, the Brownings, the Rossettis (Dante Gabriel, Christina and William Michael), Carlyle, and Millais and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 
The penniless but clever daughter of a clergyman, Pauline Jermyn married an older man whom she met through a shared passion for geology. Sir Walter Trevelyan was a philanthropist, teetotal, vegetarian, pacificist ... and very rich. With his encouragement, she collected works of art and decorated Wallington Hall with a cycle of vast paintings on the history of Northumberland. She was a patron of the arts who provided a fostering environment for many of the geniuses of her day. After her death, Swinburne wept every time her name was mentioned.

John Batchelor

This is a biography for everybody interested in poetry

Batchelor’s book is a useful reminder of what makes Tennyson a brilliant poet: it points the reader back in the direction of the poems

John Batchelor has written a biography which is commendably careful, highly readable and wholly sensible. It should stand, in years to come, as the most advisable entry point into this most inscrutable of poets

By far the most serious and just biography of Tennyson in a long time

It's a pleasure when a biographer is as good a reader of poems as of life

Batchelor tells Tennyson’s story with verve, vigour and assurance and transforms our view of him. His book is as much a reading of the Victorian age as of its favourite poet

Batchelor pinpoints the amazing alignment of Tennyson’s verse with the mood of Victorian Britain at large. His scholarly approach results in densely written text but his devotion to his subject and the period drenches the book with intimacy and heartfelt affection

To Strive, to Seek, to Find

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria’s favourite poet, commanded a wider readership than any other of his time. His ascendancy was neither the triumph of pure genius nor an accident of history:he skilfully crafted his own career and his relationships with his audience. Fame and recognition came, lavishly and in abundance, but the hunger for more never left him. Like many successful Victorians, he was a provincial determined to make good in the capital while retaining his regional strengths. One of eleven children, he remained close to his extended family and never lost his Lincolnshire accent.Resolving never to be anything except ‘a poet’, he wore his hair long, smoked incessantly and sported a cloak and wide-brimmed Spanish hat. 
 
Tennyson ranged widely in his poetry, turning his interests in geology, evolution and Arthurian legend into verse, but much of his workrelates to his personal life. The tragic loss of Arthur Hallam, a brilliant friend and fellow Apostle at Cambridge, fed into some of his most successful and best-known poems. It took Tennyson seventeen years to complete his great elegy for Hallam, In Memoriam, a work which established his fame and secured his appointment as Poet Laureate. 
 
The poet who wrote The Lady of Shalott and The Charge of the Light Brigade has become a permanent part of our culture. This enjoyable and thoughtful new biography shows him as a Romantic as well as a Victorian, exploring both the poems and Tennyson’s attempts at play writing, as well as the pressures of his age and the personal relationships that made the man.

John Batchelor

Praise for Tennyson

This is a biography for everybody interested in poetry

Batchelor’s book is a useful reminder of what makes Tennyson a brilliant poet: it points the reader back in the direction of the poems

John Batchelor has written a biography which is commendably careful, highly readable and wholly sensible. It should stand, in years to come, as the most advisable entry point into this most inscrutable of poets

This is a biography for everybody interested in poetry

Batchelor’s book is a useful reminder of what makes Tennyson a brilliant poet: it points the reader back in the direction of the poems

John Batchelor has written a biography which is commendably careful, highly readable and wholly sensible. It should stand, in years to come, as the most advisable entry point into this most inscrutable of poets

This is a biography for everybody interested in poetry

Batchelor’s book is a useful reminder of what makes Tennyson a brilliant poet: it points the reader back in the direction of the poems

John Batchelor has written a biography which is commendably careful, highly readable and wholly sensible. It should stand, in years to come, as the most advisable entry point into this most inscrutable of poets

Books by John Batchelor

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter