JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Well, there’s busy and then there’s busy. Somehow Dickens and Shakespeare managed to produce dozens of superb works–enough for one great work by dozens of other writers–all in a surprisingly short period of time, like 25 concerted years each, before they gave in to the immortal anti-beloved of eternity. John Ruskin–writer and art historian and critic–wrote a lot of books in his long life, and generally worked on many other things at the same time, all by hand, all hand-written, all stored in wooden files, all data fetched directly from books that he owned or had to make his way to.
I bring up Ruskin because of the letter I found that he wrote to Charles Eliot Norton outlining his activities. It is an impressive list (pp 180-181):