Books

5 volumes. Early Editions of Volumes I and II, First Editions of Volumes III, IV and V, all uniform in size and binding. With 3 frontispiece plates, 84 fine steel-engraved plates and 8 wood-engraved plates, in colours and black and white Royal 8vo, exquisitely bound by Riviere and Son in full contemporary tree calf richly gilt in compartments of the spines incorporating elaborate floral and illustrative tooling, lettered in gilt in two compartments, dated at the foot, double-ruled, gilt borders to the covers surrounding a richly tooled inner border of flowering vines, richly gilt inner dentelles, top edges gilt, marbled endleaves. Vol. I, Containing Parts I and II. 'Of General Principles and of Truth', lxiii, 423; Vol. II containing Part III, Sections I and II, 'Of the Imaginative and Theoretic Faculties', xvi, 224; Vol. III containing Part IV, 'Of Many Things', xix, 348, with plates as called for; Vol. IV containing Part V, 'Of Mountain Beauty', xii, 411, with plates as called for; Vol. V completing the work and containing Parts VI, 'Of Leaf Beauty', VII 'Of Cloud Beauty', VIII 'Of Ideas of Relation ( Of Invention Formal )' IX' Of Ideas of Relation ( Of Invention Spiritual )', xvi, 384 pp. A very handsome set, very well preserved with only some cosmetic evidence of use or age, a bit of light rubbing to some tips, a splendid binding with two volumes starting at the front hinges, tender but the cords in place. AN IMPORTANT SET IN VERY PLEASING CONDITION, INCLUDING THREE FIRST EDITION VOLUMES, ALL BOUND AND SIGNED BY RIVIERE AND SON. A difficult set to find so handsomely bound and in such nice and presentable condition. Ruskin began this work in 1843 at the tender age of 24 shortly after leaving Oxford, offering it as a defense of J. M. W. Turner, an accomplished landscape artist. The fifth and final volume was published in 1860, and it represented the last of Ruskin s works on art per se; his attention was subsequently turned more toward industrial problems, education, morals and religion. The set contains a vast profusion of magnificent plates from steel and wood engravings and a very fine index to this great work of Ruskin s.

This five-volume work argued that art should focus on depicting nature with truth and sincerity.