Addressed from "Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent".
John Thomas Hobbs was George Allen's brother-in-law and had been Ruskin's servant.
Marked "Private and confidential".
Reference is made to an enclosed copy of a letter from Mrs. Severn to George Allen, which was at some point separated from the main letter. See MA 2547.4 for this letter.
Telling Hobbs of additions and alterations that he has made to his house, in order to hold additional stock and to provide Ruskin with "a kind of headquarters or retreat"; discussing Ruskin's mental health, Mrs. Severn's stewardship of Ruskin, and an exchange of letters Allen had with him about money, "then followed some of the maddest and most abusive letters that could possibly come even from a low cabman"; giving details about the contractual agreement between Ruskin and Allen over the publication of the former's books; discussing the progress of work on "Modern Painters" and the orders that have come in for the two different editions of it that were in preparation; discussing the terms of Ruskin's agreement with his former publisher, Smith, Elder and Co. and Allen's negotiations with Smith, Elder and Co. for the plates of "Seven Lamps", "Stones of Venice", and "Modern Painters"; recounting two instances of Ruskin giving away plates, those of "Modern Painters" to Charles Eliot Norton for publication in America and those of "Examples of the Architecture of Venice" to Quaritch, and Allen's successful efforts to retrieve them; thanking Hobbs for sending "the sketch map of N.S.W also the work of art by the native"; commenting on Australian wine; sending news of his wife and children and other family members, including the branch of the family that has gone in for "tub-thumping"; reiterating a plea to "not let this letter out of your possession".