Sesame and Lilies

John Ruskin · English text · 93,614 words

Ruskin’s lectures consider reading and education, then turn to women’s roles and responsibilities through Victorian ideals of culture and domestic life.

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Background

The work is influential as a piece of literary criticism and a revealing document of 19th-century gender assumptions.

Reading notes

Separate Ruskin’s defense of reading from his prescriptions about gender.
Notice the examples used to define a “treasury” of books.
Read critically for the values of Ruskin’s historical moment.