Ruskin’s philosophical, social, and political ideals
(FORE-EDGE PAINTING.) RUSKIN, JOHN. The Ethics of the Dust. Ten lectures to little housewives on the elements of crystallization.
Orpington and London George Allen, 1894
Eighth edition. Blind-tooled blue calf, all edges gilt. Near fine.
With a charming fore-edge painting of Dove Cottage, William Wordsworth’s Lake District home. Wordsworth lived there with his sister Dorothy from December 1799 to May 1808. In 1802 the poet married, and his wife and her sister joined the Wordsworths at the Cottage. By 1808 the family had outgrown the house, and it became the longtime home of their friend Thomas De Quincey.
The Ethics of the Dust presents an imagined conversation with and series of lectures to the young ladies of Winnington Hall, the finishing school Ruskin supported. He casts himself as the “Old Lecturer” talking about diamonds, antiquities, minerals, and crystals, which serve as jumping-off points for a metaphorical exploration of Ruskin’s philosophical, social, and political ideals.
$1,100