5 John Ruskin first editions are documented on this shelf, from Modern Painters, Volume I (1843) to Unto This Last (1862) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that John Ruskin title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
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- Modern Painters, Volume I — 1843 · Smith, Elder and Co.First edition, published anonymously as "by a Graduate of Oxford," London: Smith, Elder and Co., May 1843, large crown 8vo, xxxi+420pp. Publisher's original cloth boards (recorded in green or purple grain) are lettered on the spine "Modern Painters / Their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting / to the Ancient Masters," with the title on the front board enclosed in a pictorial device of two trees, a lake,…. Later printings and the collected reissues that followed completion of the five-volume set in 1860 carry Ruskin's name on the title page; a genuine 1843 first-edition title page credits the author only as "a Graduate of Oxford," with Ruskin first named on a Modern Painters I title page in the fifth edition of 1851.
- The Seven Lamps of Architecture — 1849 · Smith, Elder, and Co.First edition, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., May 1849, imperial 8vo, collating viii, [1, errata slip], [4], 205, [1], [16pp of advertisements including an advertisement slip for The Stones of Venice dated 1849]. Illustrated with fourteen plates etched by Ruskin himself (two of them bitten in Dijon during his honeymoon), plus a hand-colored plan of Exeter Cathedral, all with tissue guards, and a tipped-in errata…. Later editions substitute re-engraved plates for Ruskin's own etchings; only the 1849 first edition carries his original etched plates.
- The King of the Golden River, or, The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria — 1851 · Smith, Elder & Co.Written in 1841 for twelve-year-old Effie Gray (whom Ruskin later married), but not published until a decade later, and issued anonymously. The first edition is small octavo, collating [x], 56, [ii]pp, with decorated endpapers and 22 illustrations by Richard Doyle throughout the text, including a tissue-guarded frontispiece and pictorial title page. Original binding is printed paper boards with a cloth spine, all….
- The Stones of Venice — 1851 · Smith, Elder and Co.First edition in three volumes, London: Smith, Elder and Co.: Volume I, "The Foundations," 1851, xv,[1],413pp, with a tipped-in errata slip and 21 plates (four hand-colored); Volume II, "The Sea-Stories," 1853, vi,[2],394pp, with 20 plates (two hand-colored); Volume III, "The Fall," 1853, [2],362pp, with 12 plates (one hand-colored). All fifty-three full-page illustrations across the set were drawn by Ruskin….
- Unto This Last — 1862 · Smith, Elder & Co.First edition in book form, published May 1862 (the four essays had run serially in Cornhill Magazine from August to November 1860 before editorial and public backlash cut the planned series short). Collates xviii, [1], 174 pp., bound in green cloth boards with the title lettered in gilt. Dealers and bibliographic sources record the first printing at roughly 300 copies, reflecting the weak initial sales that….
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