Time and Tide, by Weare and Tyne

Time and Tide originated as a series of letters which Ruskin addressed to one Thomas Dixon, a working man from the North East of England. The letters, written in 1867 in the context of the struggle over the Reform Act of that year which gave some working men the vote for the first time, were originally published in newspapers, principally the Manchester Daily Examiner and Times and the Leeds Mercury. They were first published in book form in the same year. Like everything else which Ruskin published, they were very carefully wrought pieces and they were revised before being issued in book form. Nonetheless, they retain a great deal of the informality of the epistolary style, including many asides and digressions. Since Ruskin was an excellent letter writer, they provide an entertaining way of entering into some of the most central aspects of his social ideas and, like The Crown of Wild Olive, Time and Tide provides a fine introduction to the more complex and analytical works such as Munera Pulveris.