Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church

Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church

Having been urged to bring out a new edition of the volume first edited by me in 1880, and having willingly accepted the invitation to do so, it will naturally be expected that I should give some account of the circumstances which have led me to take the somewhat unusual step of reviving a book which has for twelve years been lying in a state of suspended animation. On the first conception of this volume I applied to Messrs. Strahan, to produce it before the reading and thinking world. I should have done more wisely, no xii doubt, had I offered the publication to Mr. George Allen, Mr. Ruskin's well-known publisher. It avails not to explain why I chose a different course, of which subsequent events only too soon showed me the error; for after the first edition had been sold off in a week, and while the second was partly sold and partly in preparation, Messrs. Strahan's failure was announced, greatly to my surprise; my somewhat isolated position in the north country so far from London keeping me very imperfectly informed as to what was passing in the literary world. Reasonable, business-like people would ask, why did I not make an effort to rescue my little barque out of the general wreckage, and why did I not, remembering that Mr. Ruskin had with much kindness freely bestowed the copyright on me, save the second editionxiii and arrange with another publisher to carry the work on? But I was failing at the time with the illness which was effectually cured only by a long sojourn amidst or very near to the ice and snow of the Alps. I was incapable of much exertion, and, in fact, did not much care. Besides which I am not a professed literary man, being chiefly interested in the work of my rural parish on the borders of the Lake District, and should not think it fair, or even possible, if I may use an equestrian metaphor, to attempt to ride two horses at once. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 39283
Author: Ruskin, John
Release Date: Mar 27, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Malleson, F. A. (Frederick Amadeus), 1819-1897