Sesame and Lilies

SESAME AND LILIES

THREE LECTURES BY

JOHN RUSKIN LL.D,

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN & SONS

1910

DESCRIPTION

(ii) + 228 + (ii)

Book measures 175mm x 125mm approximately.

Nicely bound in full dark blue calf. Spine with five raised gilt-ruled bands with elaborate gilt decoration to compartments. Gilt swirled border to both boards with gilt inner dentelle work. Educational emblem in gilt to front board. Marbled end-papers and paste-downs. All page edges marbled.

CONDITION

In overall good condition. The binding is in firm condition and holding well. There are some general scuffs and knocks to the binding with some light rubbing of hinges and bumping to board corners. Internally the pages are extremely clean and bright throughout with barely and marks or spots at all.

Overall, a nicely bound volume in very good condition.

INTERESTING

John Ruskin (1819 to 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, philosopher, prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.

First published in 1865, Sesame & Lilies stands as a classic 19th-century statement on the natures and duties of men and women. Although widely popular in its time, the work in its entirety has been out of print since the early 20th century. Ruskin's work critiques Victorian manhood, and "Of Queens' Gardens", in which he counsels women to take their places as the moral guides of men and urges the parents of girls to educate them to this end. Feminist critics of the 1960s and 1970s regarded "Of Queens' Gardens" as an exemplary expression of repressive Victorian ideas about femininity, and they paired it with John Stuart Mill's more progressive "Subjection of Women".