In this volume we conclude the by-works which intervened between the fourth and fifth volumes of Modern Painters. In Vol. XIII. we found Ruskin immersed in sorting, cataloguing, and describing the Turner Bequest; in Vol. XIV. we followed his criticisms of contemporary art (1855–1859); and in Vol. XV. we have read the books which he wrote as a Teacher of Drawing. In the present volume are collected the fruits of his activity during the same years as a Public Lecturer. The books here brought together are (1) The Political Economy of Art (1857), afterwards re-issued, with additions, under the title of “A Joy for Ever” and its Price in the Market (1880); (2) Inaugural Address at the Cambridge School of Art (1858); (3) Letters contributed to The Oxford Museum (1858, 1859); and (4) The Two Paths (1859); (5) to these are added, in the Appendix, the reports of several other Lectures, Speeches, etc., which Ruskin delivered during the same years, but did not include in any of his published works.

The order of the books is chronological; but the order of the lectures, republished in the books, is not so. Thus one of the lectures included in The Two Paths was delivered before those on The Political Economy of Art. To present the lectures in chronological order would have been impossible, because such a disposition of them would have involved breaking up volumes which Ruskin himself arranged, and which had, in each case, a unity of purpose.