Note B — EDITOR'S PREFACE.
Reading edition
By this time (1877) the plates had become considerably worn, and were accordingly "retouched" by Mr. Chas. A. Tomkins. But such retouching proved worse than useless. The delicacy of the finer work had entirely vanished, and the plates remained but a ghost of their former selves, such as no one would recognize as doing justice to Turner. The fifth is unquestionably the least satisfactory of the five original editions containing Lupton's engravings.