Editorial Notes on the Chronology Entries
	My aim has been to establish a comprehensive and accurate chronology; accordingly, the information supplied in the notes to the entries is mainly devoted to justifying the dating of each item and, especially for the longer works, to discussing sources and compositional history. Researchers should still consult PJR, Works, RFL, TLC, and other editions for textual and explanatory notes.
	Besides the obviously necessary revisions in earlier editors’ erroneous datings, this edition attempts a precision that Collingwood might have considered pointless or even pernicious under the ban of “instructions which have been given him.” My chronology makes available, as near as possible, the day-by-day plotting of Ruskin’s composing process, including all known minor works, finished or unfinished, and the detailed compositional histories of longer works, finished or unfinished. For example, it is revealing to learn what we can about the production of the frequently quoted, so-called Account of a Tour on the Continent (no. 180)—to learn about the order in which Ruskin drafted its various sections, about what he planned to draft but never executed, about the order in which he fair-copied and illustrated the sections, and about the point at which he abandoned fair-copying. Whatever conclusions critics choose to draw from such a reconstruction, its effects on interpretation ought to differ considerably from the misleading impression of polished arrangement that has come down to us through the Library Edition printing of the Account. Who has noticed, since the Library Edition and PJR fail to inform us, that even the title is not Ruskin’s, but a paraphrase of a remark of Ruskin’s about the manuscript in Praeterita? This is only a minor correction from manuscript evidence of considerable interest, including previously unpublished poetry for the Account.
	Detailed compositional histories become especially useful when compared against the family history available in RFL. My correcting the accepted date of a poem by a few months, or even by a year, may at first seem of little consequence to manuscripts that, in any event, are juvenile productions; however, the consequences can prove revolutionary when the revised dates and sequence of Ruskin’s early literary works are correctly dovetailed with the sequence of the family letters. Thereby, the process of Ruskin’s early writing can be seen in terms of an ongoing response to his parents and teachers and of their responses to him. Thus, revised and precise chronology opens up the socio- and psychodynamics of writing in this remarkable Victorian family, to an extent never previously available. One important phenomenon already mentioned, Ruskin’s angry response to Margaret’s efforts to “stop his rhyming,” has previously been obscured by the erroneous dates and textual omissions in the older editions.
	Of course, significant portions of Collingwood’s, Cook and Wedderburn’s, and Viljoen’s work are correct (and, in a few cases of subsequently lost or destroyed items, the only evidence we have). What is reliable in their work has been fully incorporated into mine—and, I hope, adequately and gratefully acknowledged—relieving the reader of having to juggle multiple bibliographies and chronologies.
	Where possible, the editorial notes identify Ruskin’s sources, which often help confirm the dating. The interest in Ruskin’s early literary influences—a topic that initially drew editors and biographers to the juvenilia—is refreshed by the unpublished work. “Athens” presents the earliest direct evidence of Ruskin’s interest in Wordsworth’s narrative poetry, such as The Excursion, an influence that critics have attached to “Iteriad” by inference alone. Byron proves the overwhelming influence on the earlier poetry, including Ruskin’s unexpected engagement with Manfred in a series of songs and fragments (nos. 123–27, 134a). The known Byronic influences—Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan, for example—emerge more prominently than ever.
	Sources for The King of the Golden River are usually identified in Ruskin’s early reading, especially Grimm’s fairy tales—or, in the form he read them, the German Popular Stories of 1823, illustrated by Cruikshank. The unpublished poetry shows not only that he read those tales but also how he read them. Critics have identified major Ruskinian themes in his copies and versifications of Cruikshank’s illustrations, the partially published “Puppet Show” (no. 35). The verses accompanying these drawings are often very slight; other unpublished poems, such as “Life” (no. 116), extend Ruskin’s fascination with the tales themselves. In numerous narrative fragments, “kelpies,” “brownies,” “water spirits,” and the like, stalk the verse. In these, Ruskin adapts Grimm to his own interests, usually sacrificing an incipient narrative to description and mood setting, which become the poem’s objective. These gothic poems also point to Ruskin’s knowledge of Scottish folklore.
	Scott, of course, is a constant presence. Battle scenes from the Waverley novels provide a frequent source of topics. Scholars also need full access to Ruskin’s imaginative engagement with the White Lady of The Monastery or the Maiden of the Mist in Anne of Geierstein. Although these nebulous and ambiguously threatening yet guiding female figures would haunt Ruskin’s imagination throughout his life, the poems containing them have previously been published, if at all, only as brief quotations (e.g., no. 46).
	Besides the influence of major writers, the unpublished Ruskin also reflects minor poets and fiction writers, not to mention obscure natural science magazine articles, geology primers, travel narratives, sensational tales in gift annuals, and the like. Occasionally, I have been able to dig up a forgotten source, such as the Reverend George Croly’s Tales of the Great St. Bernard, which gave Ruskin his idea for the “Chronicles of St. Bernard” (no. 216). A great help to me in identifying scientific sources has been Viljoen’s unpublished papers on the juvenilia.