First edition in book form. Bound by Roger de Coverly in half red morocco over marbled cloth covered board and gilt ruled covers. Five raised bands to spine, lettered and decorated in gilt. Top edge gilt and the rest uncut. Marbled endpapers. A near fine set, very minor rubbing to the corners of Volume I and Volume III. Minor spotting to pages across the set.
 
PROVENANCE: Bookplates of Samuel Ashton Thompson-Yates (1843-1903) and Hugh Bright to front endpapers.
 
A very attractive set of Ruskin’s memoirs, with fine book collecting heritage.
 
Samuel Ashton Thompson Yates was the grandson of Joseph Brook Yates (1780-1855) who, in 1812, was one of the founders of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society. On his death, Joseph Brook Yates left his book collection to grandsons Samuel Ashton Thompson Yates, and Henry Yates Thompson (1836-1903).
 
Both went on to be great book collectors in their own right, with Yates Thompson amassing one of the finest collections of medieval manuscripts of the twentieth century, and Thompson Yates founding the library at The Thompson Yates medical laboratory at Liverpool University.
 
Their respective collections then passed to Allan Heywood Bright (1862-1941), and this set bears the bookplate of his son Hugh Bright.