The Elements of Drawing; in Three Letters to Beginners

Complete with 16pp publisher's catalogue (dated June 1857) bound in at end and Westleys' binder's ticket on rear paste-down. First edition of Ruskin's drawing lessons for children. Intended for those without recourse to a drawing-master, it provides a series of eminently practical exercises supported by illustrations. Ruskin was always greatly interested in the teaching of art; perhaps his most famous pupil was Alice Liddell (Carroll's 'Alice') to whom he taught drawing and painting, as a result of which he appears in 'Alice in Wonderland' as the 'Drawing Master', an 'old Conger Eel' who attended 'once a week' and 'taught us Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in Coils'. Ruskin's lifelong love of the English Lakes began when he sat by Coniston at the age of eighteen, but it was not until his early fifties that he finally purchased Brantwood, one of the most splendid houses in the Lake District. Although he had not seen the interior he reasoned that any house opposite Coniston 'must be beautiful' and in 1871 secured the freehold from William Linton for the sum of £1,500. He moved in a year later, and the house became not merely a blissfully happy home but a renowned centre of artistic and literary endeavour for Ruskin and his circle. Brantwood remains today a place of pilgrimage for admirers and scholars of one of the greatest Victorian polymaths. THIS COPY HAS A BOOKPLATE READING 'EX LIBRIS JOHN RUSKIN BRANTWOOD' ON FRONT PASTE-DOWN. THIS BOOKPLATE HAS BEEN SHOWN BY J.S. DEARDEN ('Facets of Ruskin, 1970) TO BE FRAUDULENT. WHILST THIS COPY IN UNQUESTIONABLY A FIRST ISSUE OF THE WORK, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO SHOW THAT ITS PROVENANCE INCLUDES EITHER RUSKIN OR BRANTWOOD.