<provenance_introduction>
<head1>General Introduction
	Most of the <major_manuscript> major manuscripts share a common provenance or at least portions of a common history of ownership and preservation. That history is therefore most conveniently compiled in a set of master documents. There follow links to those of the master documents relevant to the manuscript in question. The links should be followed in succession, although the separate documents are written to be as self-standing as possible.

	Discussion is restricted to questions of ownership and preservation, with the <editing_history> history of editing the major manuscripts treated as a separate topic. Provenance and editing history overlap, however, especially between about 1889 when <collingwood> W. G. Collingwood started editing <poems91> Poems (1891) and 1912 when <cook>E. T. Cook and <wedderburn>Alexander Wedderburn completed editing the <le>Library Edition. Editing appears to have proceeded side by side with preservation interdependently, although the exact relation between the two responsibilities is now speculative.

	Until Ruskin's death in 1900, the provenance of the major manuscripts forms a fairly linear history, which can be subdivided according to the successive homes where they were kept and used--<herne_hill>Herne Hill, <denmark_hill>Denmark Hill, and <brantwood>Brantwood--although provenance in the Brantwood years becomes complicated by Ruskin's occasional <gift>gifts of his early work. After Ruskin's death, the narrative branches into intersecting stories of <preservation>preservation, <sale>sales (authorized and unauthorized), and <collector>collectors.