Materials from Modern Painters I which was included in the most popularising and influential lifetime selections from the writings of Ruskin are marked in the Third Edition given in this edition. These include passages represented in the two main lifetime general selections from the writings of Ruskin-1861 Smith Elder and 1894 George Allen-and in Frondes Agrestes, which was selected from all the volumes of Modern Painters by Ruskin's friend, Susan Beaver of The Thwaite in Coniston in 1875.
These selections disassociate the text from the volume of Modern Painters. Each extract is chosen to stand alone as a separate entity, and any text which would have tied a passage to a more weighty discussion has been omitted. For example in a selection from Frondes called 'On some isolated mountain at daybreak' five occurrences of 'Has Claude given this?' have been omitted. In the same passage in Smith Elder's 1861 edition entitled 'Aspects of Clouds' the same phrases have been omitted. Passages entitled 'Leafage of Trees' from both Smith Elder and Allen selections omit an entire paragraph in mid flow. (See MP I:390, -17 to MP I:390, -9)
For the most part the same text is used in two of the three selections. Sixteen passages are used in two selections. Only one passage includes extracts used in all three selections. This begins describing a snow drift ( MP I:281, -4). Smith and Allen use an identical passage, while Susan Beaver in Frondes begins using the first half, and the remainder of her selection on snow is actually taken from Modern Painters II. The only other 'inconsistency' within the Frondes selections is in the very first extract entitled 'Perfect Taste'. It is two sentences long, with the first line being taken from MP I:26, and the second line from MP I:25.