ABSTRACT
Proust had already published his rather unsuccessful Les Plaisirs et les jours and had written large chunks of a novel he never completed when he discovered the work of John Ruskin. He first heard of the man who was to become his aesthetic mentor from Robert de la Sizeranne, whose studies contained lengthy extracts from Ruskin’s works in translation,1 as did the Bulletin de VUnionpour l\Action morale, which was edited by the philosopher Paul Desjardins, one of Proust’s professors at the Ecole des Sciences politiques? Proust’s encounter with Ruskin was so significant that he abandoned the manuscript of the novel which was published posthumously as Jean Santeuil to give himself completely to the^man he called his master.3 He subscribed to the Library Edition of Ruskin’s opus, brought out by Cook and Wedderbum in 39 volumes between 1903 and 1912 and boasted that he knew half a dozen or so of them by heart, citing in particular his Lectures on Architecture and Painting, his essay on Tuscan art in the Val d ’Arno, and his autobiography Prceterita.4 Ruskin, whose work included a lecture entitled ‘A Caution to Snakes’, imaginary dialogues about crystallization with pupils at a girls’ school and a practical exercise in political economy - namely setting up a Tea Shop in Paddington Street - was to become a leading figure in Proust’s cultural and intellectual formation.
