Outlook. 81: 887. D. 9, ‘05. 210w.

[*] Ruskin, John. Complete works. $37.50. Crowell.

Thirty volumes containing besides the usual texts of Ruskin’s works at least two volumes of author’s notes, bibliography and indices not usually found in current editions. The volumes are strongly bound for library purposes, the type is large and clear, and the illustrations for the set include thirty photogravures, 341 half-tones, and 10 color plates, some of which are reproductions of Ruskin’s own sketches, as well as Turner’s. The books are boxed and appear in three styles of bindings.

Ruskin, John. Letters of John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton; ed. by C. E. Norton. [**]$4. Houghton.

These letters, covering a period from 1855 to 1887, are edited by Professor Norton himself. They are the intimate letters of a man to his best friend, some, indeed, have been omitted as too intimate for publication, and, beginning where “Praeterita” ended, they form a sequel to it and a valuable addition to Ruskin’s autobiography. The letters describe the changes which took place in Ruskin’s views of art, religion, and life during that period, they show him as a social reformer, and political economist, and give his opinions on American and European politics. His sketches of the people and places that he loved, his inner purposes, his work, and the doubts and perplexities that beset him, reveal the writer to us in a new and more lovable light. There are a number of illustrations.

+ +Acad. 68: 123. F. 11, ‘05. 1240w.

Reviewed by H. W. Boynton.

Atlan. 95: 425. Mr. ‘05. 590w.

“The graceful dignity and consummate skill of the comment which accompanies them. Not only are they a continuous record of Ruskin’s intellectual and emotional life from 1856 on, and thus almost completely supplement the unfinished ‘Praeterita,’ but they have the advantage over ‘Praeterita’ in being records contemporary to the fact, and thus not subject to contamination through subsequent changes of mood and of memory. In that of purest friendship, merely as the spontaneous record of his inner as well as his outer life. With just reticence and balance of judgment, Mr. Norton sums up the work of his friend. Ruskin’s comments on his contemporaries are interesting.” G. R. Carpenter.

+ +Bookm. 20: 455. Ja. ‘05. 1360w.