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Why is John Ruskinās autobiography Praeterita considered incomplete and unreliable as a chronology?
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John Ruskin
John Ruskin, tinted lithograph published in London, c. 1880.
John Ruskinās autobiography, Praeterita (1885ā89), is considered incomplete and chronologically unreliable because it was written as a "shamelessly partial" account of his life.
The work is unfinished and intentionally omits significant aspects of his personal history, most notably his marriage. Rather than serving as a precise record of events, Praeterita functions primarily as a subtle and memorable exploration of the development of his own distinctive sensibility.1