BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE lv

Lamps.’ Twenty small paper copies on the like paper, uniform with the ordinary copies of the 1880 edition. Thirty copies uniform with the 1883 (quarto) edition.”

Unauthorised American editions of The Seven Lamps have been very numerous, and in various styles, from a “People’s edition” at 50 cents to a “Beautiful edition” at six dollars. These editions, in some of which the author’s illustrations are shamefully traduced, were often smuggled into this country, and this was one of the considerations which led to his re-issue of the book in 1880. The first American edition was published by John Wiley in 1849 (12mo, pp. 186).

An authorised “Brantwood edition” (uniform with the “small edition” described above), was published at New York in 1891, with an Introduction by Charles Eliot Norton (pp. v.-x.).

An authorised French translation appeared in 1900 in a volume entitled “John Ruskin, La Couronne d’ Olivier sauvage: Les Sept Lampes de l’ Architecture. Traduction de George Elwall” (Paris: Société d’ Edition Artistique). The “Seven Lamps” occupies pp. 83-277; the Introductory Chapter, Prefaces, Notes and Appendices are not included. The illustrations of the 1890 English edition are given.

A German translation by Wilhelm Schoelermann-“Die Sieben Leuchter der Baukunst”-appeared in 1900 as the first volume of “John Ruskin: Ausgewählte Werke in vollständiger Uebersetzung” (Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs). The text followed is that of the 1880 edition; the plates of the 1890 edition are somewhat roughly reproduced. The translator puts together passages from the three prefaces and dates his compost “Coniston, 1880.” He also makes various curtailments in the text, as explained in a “Nachwort” (p. 408). A short index is given, and the translator supplies an introduction (pp. 1-3).

[Version 0.04: March 2008]