In Unto this Last, his masterpiece of social criticism, the Victorian polymath John Ruskin declares emphatically, “THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE.” The life he envisions is not a simple antonym to death as he goes on to explain, “Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration.” This powerful act of life implies a vitality concomitant with good health. Ruskin’s book remains inspirational in our current age of pandemic endurance. First-world countries are coming to realize that until humans are globally immune, no place is safe from the potential ravages of this killer. Health has become a means of survival. A focus on health or its absence enlightens an exploration of texts from across spans of time and throughout cultures. My undergraduate students and I will consider 18th and 19th century British literature in terms that focus on health as a manifestation of wealth in its broadest sense.
Ashley King considers the risks of masking human differences in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in “Risking Mental Health: Dr Jekyll’s Gamble.”
Katie Vermilyea discusses the richness of daydreams in the life and writings of Charles Lamb in “The Wealth of Dreams: Lucidity and Charles Lamb.”
Braden Taylor applies the ideas of John Ruskin to an evaluation of current economic and social conditions of laborers in “The Value of Labor: Workingclass Heroes.”
Dr. Kay Walter is a British Literature Generalist at University of Arkansas at Monticello, her undergraduate alma mater. She regularly includes lessons on John Ruskin in all her classes. She is a Companion of the Guild of St George and a life member of Friends of Ruskin’s Brantwood, Carson McCullers Society, Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club, Arkansas Library Association, Hostelling International USA, Royal Oak Foundation, and the Ruskin Art Club. She edits The English Pub, an online newsletter for Arkansas Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts which is read by literacy enthusiasts in forty-seven states and more than thirty nations.
Zachary Bullock is Dept. Chair of History and Social Sciences at Charlottesville High School, Charlottesville, Virginia.