The System of Title Citation
	All titles in the chronology refer to poems unless a following parenthetical identification specifies prose—poetry forming, by far, the largest portion of the early writing. Prose and poem titles placed in quotation marks are Ruskin’s. Untitled poems are cited by their first lines, also in quotation marks, first lines being distinguishable from titles by conventions of capitalization.
	In his own titles, Ruskin adhered to conventions of capitalization irregularly, so many of his titles would read, if transcribed exactly, like first-line citations. Thus, to distinguish between Ruskin’s titles and my first-line citations for untitled works, I have found it convenient, for purposes of this chronology, to regularize conventions of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation in his titles. If any ambiguity can have resulted from my regularization of titles—for example, the questionable placement of apostrophes, which Ruskin frequently omitted, to form singular or plural possessives—I have striven to avoid misleading the reader by discussing the problem in the item’s note, often supplying Ruskin’s title in its original form.
	In some cases, main titles are followed by alternative titles placed in parentheses, and the alternative is discussed in the item’s note. Many titles in parentheses are merely first-line citations, added to distinguish between items to which Ruskin assigned the same or similar titles (e.g., “A Sermon” or “A Psalm”), these parenthetical first-line citations again being distinguishable from titles by conventions of capitalization. Other titles in parentheses refer to inventions by earlier editors—editorial titles, by which some works have come to be familiarly known and which therefore need to be available to the reader. In such cases, the reader should recognize that Ruskin’s own titles or first-line citations would be far preferable. Collingwood cherished a regrettable affection for sentimental titles, which at the very least can embarrass the actual tone of the work. For example, the prettiness of his title “Moonlight on the Mountains” for the originally untitled no. 147 proves to have been justified only by the editor’s deletion of the draft’s closing stanzas, which depict “a gloomy thing” that reverses the serene tone of the opening stanzas printed by Collingwood. Since such decisions belong to the late-century formation of the myth of Ruskin’s childhood, the editors of the Library Edition were not always careful to indicate where titles are editorial. Cook and Wedderburn generally enclosed Collingwood’s editorial titles in brackets, but their practice is inconsistent.
	When I have been forced myself to invent an editorial title for prose and poetry, I distinguish it from other kinds of titles by the omission of quotation marks. These titles are descriptive. Where possible, they are drawn from Ruskin’s own habitual way of referring to an item in his letters, although no title can be found inscribed on the manuscript itself, such as his Mineralogical Dictionary (no. 98). Descriptive titles prove necessary where first-line citation is impractical—for example, in cases where untitled long poems consist of multiple parts, each with its own title, such as the Account of a Tour on the Continent (no. 180); or in cases where the texts of poems have been all but obliterated, such as the Satirical Poem on Mr. Rowbotham (no. 145), so that no first-line citation is possible.