VOLUME I. Autograph Edition. ---
New Edition (1873).-Generally known as the Autograph Edition, from the fact of the new preface (here, p. 54) being signed by the author. The title-pages were as follow:-
Modern Painters. | Volume I. | Containing | Parts I. and II. | Of General Principles and of Truth. | By John Ruskin, LL.D. | Author of "The Stones of Venice," etc., etc. | [Quotation] | A New Edition London: | Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place. | 1873. | [The Author reserves the right of translation.]
Modern Painters. | Volume II. | Containing | Part III. | Sections I. and II. | Of the Imaginative and Theoretic Faculties. | By John Ruskin, LL.D. | etc., etc.
Modern Painters. | Volume III. | Containing Part IV. | Of Many Things. | By John Ruskin, LL.D. | etc., etc.
Modern Painters. | Volume IV. | Containing Part V. | Of Mountain Beauty. By John Ruskin, LL.D. | etc., etc.
Modern Painters. | Volume V. | Completing the work, and containing | Parts VI. Of Leaf Beauty. | VII. Of Cloud Beauty. | VIII. Of Ideas of Relation. | 1. Of Invention Formal. | IX. Of Ideas of Relation. | 2. Of Invention Spiritual. | By John Ruskin, LL.D. | etc., etc.
The collation is:-vol. i. pp. lxiii.+423; vol. ii. pp. xvi.+224; vol. iii. pp. xix.+348; vol. iv. pp. xii.+411; vol. v. pp. xvi.+384. In volume i. of this edition is added a preface limiting the edition to a thousand copies, and signed by the author's own hand. Beyond this the work is a reprint without alteration from the last editions of the different volumes of the work. Issued (on June 26, 1873) in pale green cloth boards, similar to those of the previous editions of separate volumes. The published price of the five volumes was Eight Guineas. Sets have in recent years been sold in the auction rooms at prices ranging, partly according to condition, from £19 (1889) to £6, 12s. 6d. (1902).
To vol. ii. as to vol. i. there were no illustrations. Vol. iii. contained a frontispiece and 17 plates; vol. iv., a frontispiece and Plates 18-50; vol. v. a frontispiece and Plates 51-100. Several wood-cuts were also given in vols. iii. to v. Particulars of the illustrations are in this edition given in the Introductions and Bibliographical Notes to those volumes. The plates added in this edition to vols. i. and ii. are not numbered (on the plates) in order to preserve the author's numbering in the later volumes. In the "Autograph Edition" of 1873, all the illustrations were printed from the original plates.
That edition included at the end of vol. v. three indices to the whole work, first given in the separate issue of vol. v. (1860), viz. Local Index, Index to Painters and Pictures, and Topical Index. ( Works, 3.lviii-lix)
Not in fact an exact reprint. There are slight alterations in spelling and punctuation, as indicated in the collations.