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The King of the Golden River

The King of the Golden River

By (author) John Ruskin

£14.99

Publishing 14th Apr 2025
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    • Charming fairy tale in facsimile edition 
    Full Description

    John Ruskin wrote this fable for a teenage family friend, Effie, and later he married her. The marriage was famously disastrous, but before it fell apart the Ruskins allowed The King of the Golden River to be published. It became one of the most popular works for children of its time. Richard Doyle contributed over 25 full-page illustrations and vignettes.

    The King of the Golden River is the first literary fairy tale in English (as opposed to collected folk tales). Ruskin himself said it was ‘a fairly good imitation of Grimm and Dickens, mixed with some true Alpine feeling of my own’. Later he spoke of the capacity of the traditional tales ‘to fortify children against the glacial cold of selfish science’.

    It remains a powerful fable about humanity’s dual capacity for destructiveness and redeeming love, with as strange fairy-tale creatures as one could hope to meet.

    An essay by Simon Cooke explains the book’s importance.

    About the Author

    John Ruskin (1819-1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art historian, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy and was one of the most far-reaching thinkers of his or any other century.

    Specifications
    Publisher
    Pallas Athene
    ISBN
    9781843682660
    Publish date
    14th Apr 2025
    Binding
    Hardback
    Territory
    World
    Size
    185 mm x 145 mm
    Pages
    64 Pages
    Illustrations
    25 b&w
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