In Praeterita (1885-89) Ruskin acknowledged Byron as one of his two 'masters', his 'master in verse, as Turner in colour' ( Works, 35.144). Ruskin's acquaintance with Byron's work dated from early childhood. Byron was one of John James Ruskin 's favourite writers, whose poetry he habitually read aloud to his wife and son in the evenings, although Margaret Ruskin supervised her son's first exposure to Byron's works, forbidding some portions of Don Juan ( Works, 35.142). As early as 1836 Ruskin described Byron as 'The greatest poet after Shakespeare' and partially modelled his own early compositions on his style ( Works, 1.373).
Byron was a radical thinker yet also a passionate advocate of what he perceived as the beautiful and the true, allegiances which Ruskin also adopted as a nonconformist intellectual (see Evangelicalism and Ruskin and religion). Ruskin's impassioned defence of Turner in Modern Painters I in 1843 was foreshadowed by an essay he wrote in 1836, found in the papers of his early tutor, the Revd Thomas Dale, entitled 'Does the Perusal of Works of Fiction Act Favourably or Unfavourably on the Moral Character?' ( Works, 1.357) Just as Ruskin's vindication of Turner was prompted by unfavourable reviews of Turner, so he assumed the role of Byron's champion against the claims of a popular 'Student's Guide' by the American Revd John Todd, published in Britain in 1836 as revised by Dale, which warned students to avoid 'dangerous' authors such as Scott and Byron ( Works, 1.357).