John Ruskin, social reformer

D. Estes & company [Published date: 1898]. Hard cover, 357 pp. No other printings listed. NOT a facsimile or reprint edition. In Acceptable+ condition/ NO dust jacket. Blue cloth covered boards with gold lettering on front and spine. Light bumping and scuffing to edges of covers with a bit of nicking and fraying to the corner tips and on the top and bottom of spine. Thin cracks along spine at front and back covers along hinges, and half-title page is beginning to separate from the to edge, but binding is otherwise intact. Previous owners' names in ink on front free end papers and book sellers address stamped on front paste-down. Several pages have underlining and bracket marks in ink. Pages lightly browned. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. Nice frontispiece photo of Ruskin. J. A. Hobson's book stands out as one of the first full-scale critiques and appreciations of Ruskin as a writer on society. It is based on Hobson's extremely wide and thorough reading of Ruskin's works, in an attempt to place Ruskin, the great art-critic, as an economic and social teacher. "My design is too render some assistance to this who are disposed to admit the validity of the claim which Mr. Ruskin has made to be firs and above all else a Political Economist, and who are willing to give careful consideration alike to the strictures he has passed upon current economic theory and practice and to the schemes of social and industrial construction which he has advocated with zeal and persistence for over thirty years". Contents include: Preface; Formative Influences of Early Life; From Art to Social Reform; The Indictment of Current Political Economy; Mr. Ruskin's Theory of Social Economics; Flaws in the Science and Practice of Modern Industry; The Competitive System; The True Social Order; Socialism and Aristocracy; Machinery and Industrial Towns; Education; Woman's Place and Education; Industrial Experiments - The Guild of St. George; Summary of Mr. Ruskin's Work and Influence; Appendix; Index