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The Stones of Venice by: John Ruskin List Price: £17.95 City Travel Guides Price: £11.69 You Save: £6.26 (35%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 729.94531 EAN: 9780306812866 ISBN: 030681286X Label: Da Capo Press Manufacturer: Da Capo Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 264 Publication Date: June 19, 2003 Publisher: Da Capo Press Studio: Da Capo Press Sales Rank: 103318 Related Items:
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Editorial Review: Book Description: The Stones of Venice has been described as the greatest guidebook ever written. Read by all who went there and thousands who did not, it opened Victorian eyes to the glories of a city even then under threat, and transformed the study and practice of architecture for ever. It took Ruskin almost half a million words to launch his devastating attack on the Renaissance - 'the school which has conducted men's inventive and constructional faculties from the Grand Canal to Gower Street' and to explain how to see and make true architecture. They were 'glorious words, but too many,' as J. G. Links put it while preparing this edition. Links, himself the greatest exponent of Venice of the twentieth century, designed this abridgement to convey all the excitement, urgency, love of Venice and unmatchedly beautiful prose to a new generation of readers. This edition includes 48 of Ruskin's own superb drawings and diagrams. Synopsis: "For the lover of Venice...but above all for the lover of fine writing."J. G. Links. John Ruskin, Victorian England's greatest writer on art and literature, believed himself an adopted son of Venice, and his feelings for this city are exquisitely expressed in The Stones of Venice . This edition contains Ruskin's famous essay "The Nature of Gothic," a marvelously descriptive tour of Venice before its postwar restoration. As Ruskin wrote in 1851, "Thank God I am here, it is a Paradise of Cities." From the Publisher: In the words of the modern historian, Tristram Hunt, 'this is Ruskin's finest work, balanced archly between his early aesthetic writings and his later social concerns. It mixes art, architecture and morality to create a metaphysical history of the Venetian republic. It is an elegiac tale of decline and fall, with Ruskin simultaneously seduced and repelled by the "fairy city". From the Author: It is a book for the lover of architecture, the lover of Venice, the lover of lost causes... but, perhaps, above all, for the lover of fine writing. J. G. Links in his introduction From the Back Cover: "To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion - all in one." John Ruskin About the Author: John Ruskin (1819-1900), theorist and painter, was the greatest and most influential critic of the nineteenth century. His writings on art, architecture and social issues fill forty volumes, and eventually he collapsed through overwork. J. G. Links (1904-1997) author of Venice for Pleasure, surely the second greatest guidebook ever written after the Stones, was, together with his wife Mary Lutyens, an acknowledged authority on Ruskin and his circle. The choice of texts for this edition was made after a lifetime's immersion in the work of the master. Customer Reviews
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 Rating:  - "Since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, ..."There are a number of editions of Ruskin's classic work: this is a review of the Penguin Classic History edition (originally published in 1960), reprinted in 2001. It is edited and abridged from the original three volumes of 450,000 words by Venice and Canaletto scholar, the late J.G. Links, who lauds Ruskin as "one of the greatest teachers - of anything - of all time." Links points out that Ruskin himself brought out an abridgement of his monumental work, but that this abridgement was itself unsatisfactory, omitting for example Ruskin's chapter on `The Nature of Gothic', the chapter that Kenneth Clark later said he could not read "without a thrill, without a sudden resolution to reform the world." But how much of an abridgement ... Read More: Rating:  - Interesting selectionOf course this book is abridged. (see previous review). The original is in 3 weighty volumes and approaches 500,000 words! As good a selection as you're going to get from a writer who knows Venice intimately and is an excellent guide to Ruskin's work. Don't be put off by the abridgement - be grateful! And if you're really into Venice buy JG links Venice For Pleasure - it's an absolute gem and a must for any visitor to that magical city. Rating: - this edition is abridgedI haven't read this yet, but I thought I would warn other buyers that this is not the full text of the Stones of Venice--it is abridged. J. G. Links seems confident that he has done so in an intelligent way; perhaps he will win me over... |
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