Intended to make his ideas and writings accessible to the modern reader, this text presents Ruskin through five of his most famous works, presented in date order. It provides an authentic portrait of Ruskin by stressing the works that most richly display the temper of his mind: Modern Painters; The Stones of Venice; Unto this Last; Fors Clavigera; and Praeterita. The book was first published in 1963 and this edition is expanded with a new forward and an updated bibliography which takes into account Ruskinian scholarship up until the late 1990s.