‘If You Will but Study Him’: The Presence of John Ruskin in the Plays of Henry Arthur Jones

Despite widespread interest in John Ruskin and the theatre in recent years, little consideration has been given to his presence in the works of one major playwright, Henry Arthur Jones (1851–1929). Although Ruskin's influence on Jones has been examined in broad terms by commentators such as Kate Newey and Peter Yeandle, a detailed textual analysis of Jones's plays has not been forthcoming. In this essay, I discuss three plays by Jones – The Silver King (1882), Wealth (1889) and The Middleman (1889) – and demonstrate how they dramatise key elements of Ruskin's well-known works ‘Of Queens’ Gardens’ (1864) and Unto This Last (1862). I argue that with these commercially successful and critically admired plays, Jones was at the forefront of communicating and popularising Ruskinian thinking for theatre audiences in the West End and across the world.