xlviii INTRODUCTION

it. His earlier mood now returned. He found the original book tolerable, and enjoyed writing the new notes. They were completed in November; some additions and a new preface were sent to press in February, and at the end of May the new (third) edition of the book was published.

A feature of the 1880 edition was the distinguishing, by means of thicker type, of passages which the author considered especially note-worthy.¹ They were called “Aphorisms,” and a concise summary of each was given in a marginal note. By a “grotesque mischance,” Ruskin forgot to explain this novelty in his new Preface, and an “Advice” had to be inserted to repair the omission (see below, p. 17). It is unnecessary to follow here the subsequent history of the book, which is set forth in the Bibliographical Note. It may however be stated generally that The Seven Lamps of Architecture has since 1880 been by far the most widely circulated of Ruskin’s larger books on art.

It remains to explain the arrangement of the book in this edition. The text is, as usual, that last revised by the author; in this case, that of the 1880 edition. It has, however, been made complete by the inclusion of all the original notes. Of these-seventeen in number-twelve were omitted in 1880; they are here restored. (For their arrangement, see notes on pp. liii., 267.) The additional notes of 1880 are distinguished by the insertion of that date at the end. Variations in the text of successive editions are given in footnotes or (in the case of those of little significance) in a supplementary Appendix (p. 288). Again, the Preface of the Second Edition, of which in the 1880 edition some portion was omitted, and some figured as an Appendix, is here given in its entirety. The summaries of the Aphorisms here, as in the 1880 edition, are given as marginal notes; but the black-type, in which the aphoristic passages were then printed, has not been adopted. Ruskin himself did not like it. He admitted in a letter to Mr. Allen (Dec. 5) that the appearance was not “graceful,” and he had discussed various alternatives; such as the use of ordinary type “leaded,” or a marking of the passages “by arrows at the side of the page.” In this uniform edition of Ruskin’s Works, the passages in question are printed in the ordinary type, but a footnote is in each case supplied indicating the words which were put into black-letter in 1880.

The manuscripts, etc., of this volume to which the editors have had access are (1) the MS. of the book, (2) a copy of the second edition corrected by Ruskin for the revised edition of 1880. The latter is referred to in

¹ A similar plan was adopted in the reprint in 1887 of the Oxford Lectures on Art (see preface to that edition).

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