John Ruskin was one of the 19^th century’s greatest and most influential thinkers. His opinions on art, architecture, issues of social and economic justice, and education reverberated throughout the Victorian world. Figures like Gandhi, Tolstoy, and Proust revered him. Yet Ruskin’s life was also blighted by his disastrous romantic choices. Salem Athenæum member Octavia Randolph will speak about Ruskin’s unconsummated marriage to the beautiful Effie Gray, and his tragic obsession for the teenaged Rose LaTouche, and read from her new novel about Ruskin’s life, Light, Descending.