lii BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Second Edition (1855).-The title-page was as follows:-

The | Seven Lamps | of | Architecture. | By | John Ruskin, A. M., | Author of “Modern Painters,” “Stones of Venice,” | “Lectures on Architecture and Painting,” | etc. etc. | With Illustrations, drawn by the Author. | Second Edition. | London: | Smith, Elder, & Co., 65, Cornhill. | 1855.

Imperial 8vo, pp. xx. +205. The addition to the preliminary pages was caused by a new “Preface to the Second Edition,” pp. ix.-xv. (here pp. 7-14). The body of the book was reprinted page for page, though with several alterations in the words (see here, e.g., notes on pp. 30, 55, 62, 135, 147, 239, and list of minor variants in Appendix iii., pp. 288-289). The plates of the first edition were all withdrawn, their place being taken by a new set. The new plates were inserted opposite the same pages as in ed. 1, except that Plate IX. was transferred from its original position to serve as a frontispiece. (This alteration was not noted by the author in revising the text; see below, p. 187.) Plate IX. (of the same subject as before) was engraved by J. C. Armytage from a new drawing by the author. The other plates were re-etched by R. P. Cuff from the original drawings. All the 2nd ed. illustrations are here reproduced. In ed. 2 the plates were all lettered at foot, “Published by Smith, Elder, & Co., London.” The binding was identical with ed. 1. Published on July 23, 1855, at One Guinea. Copies of this second edition have in recent years fetched in the auction-rooms prices ranging from £2, 6s. to £4 10s., according to their condition. Before the book was reprinted in 1880, prices of both the earlier editions were often twice the sums mentioned above.

Third Edition (1880).-The title-page was as follows:-

The | Seven Lamps | of | Architecture. | By | John Ruskin, | Honorary Student of Christ Church, and | Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, | etc. etc. | With Illustrations, drawn by the Author. New Edition. | George Allen, | Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent. | 1880.

Imperial 8vo, pp. xvi. +222. A new Preface for this edition occupied pp. v.-vii. (here pp. 15-17); the Preface to the First Edition, pp. ix.-xii. For the treatment in the 1880 edition of the Preface to the Second Edition, see below, p. 7 n. The text of the body of the work was reprinted from ed. 2, with a few omissions (see below, pp. 41, 63) and minor alterations (see, e.g., pp. 85, 180). But thirty-three passages were printed as “aphorisms” in black-letter (“Clarendon”) type, the substance of these aphorisms being given (as in the present volume) in side-headings (see on this subject, p. xlviii., above). It was not until a portion of the edition had been disposed of that Ruskin noticed the fact that his new Preface gave no explanation of this arrangement. In the remaining copies of the edition, a slip was inserted before page 1, called “Advice” and dated “Brantwood, Coniston, May 26th, 1880.”

[Version 0.04: March 2008]