This magnificent book was recommended to me by a dear friend through another review here on Amazon.com. For that recommendation I am grateful due to the pleasure that I have received from it. I enjoyed the audio book rather than the printed version, and as one who listens to hundreds of audio books, I can say that this production through the talent of Anton Lesser, produces dramatic results.

The book, this epic poem, is so beautifully written that it would be a pleasure to read, or listen to, even if the actual content was in some way lacking. But, the content is anything but lacking. For me, Milton points out that God is vengeful, jealous, and ego-driven, almost as though he were human. What father would pronounce the death sentence on his child for eating fruit from a tree (albeit "forbidden fruit")? What father would banish their child from Eden for that same offense? None that I know. Milton shows the God of the Genesis to be harsh and cruel while staying true to scripture.

If you are looking for a book that is beautiful to read, and thought-provoking to ponder, then look no further.

Best wishes, Kevin

Milton is the gold standard. Has anything better been written since? I love contemporary poetry, don't get me wrong, but when I get tired of it I go back to Wordsworth and Milton to remind myself of how high the mountaintop is. This is also a beautiful edition, an excellent addition to anyone's library.

I used the Norton critical edition edited by Scott Elledge

We will discover in these pages a profound rendering of the cosmic battle between good and evil, man's fall through disobedience to God, and Satan's perversion on mankind.

Each line serves a purpose, so in order to inhale this sublime poem to its fullest it will be necessary to slow down. Immensely valuable to understanding this difficult poem is the editor's explanatory summery going into each of the twelve books (chapters) and the numerous footnotes.

The second half of the book contains a biography, an historical evolution, other writings, and a critical analysis of Milton by multiple revered authors with a wide degree of beliefs.

Wish you well
Scott

I bought this book as a gift so I haven't read it.
As far as I can tell the book is really well made.
Has a B/W illustration at the beginning of every chapter and the printing is superb.

First off, let me say that we're not talking here about the famous Qi gong instructor named John Milton. We're talking about the famous 17th-century English poet who wrote _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_, two of the most wonderfully overlong Christian poems in the history of Western literature.

Your English teacher will tell you that _Paradise Lost_ "narrates the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience, explains how and why it happened, and places the story within the larger context of Satan's rebellion and Jesus' resurrection." And you know that can't be far wrong, because SparkNotes says the exact same thing.

But the main reason everyone should read Milton's grand epic is that it contains certain secrets about prayer.

In PL, Milton reminds us how important it is, when we pray, to be absolutely specific. The Lord has a strange, often disturbing, sense of humour (PL, books I-XII). If you leave Him wiggle room, He will answer your prayer in a way you never intended, and then say it was your own damned fault, because your prayer contained seven types of ambiguity.

John Milton writes from experience. Example: Almost every time a good-looking woman passed within view of John Milton, he suffered an involuntary erection. Daniel of the Old Testament might well have suffered such a condition without complaining, but John Milton found it onerous. John was both a Puritan and a student of Saint Augustine. He was not happy when he suffered an erection, he hated it, and he especially resented the women who made that thing happen to him.

In a Latin letter to his friend, George Wither, John Milton reports that, in his youth, he would sometimes see a pretty woman even in his dreams at night, and suffer, not just an erection, but the whole nine yards, up to and including a nocturnal emission; which he trained himself to handle according to Scripture, thereby to purify himself (Deut. 23:10); but sometimes he was unable to wait that long before he handled it, which filled his soul full of Puritan remorse and self-reproach.

At age 33, the poet took to wife a 16-year-old lolita named Mary Powell; and you may already have guessed the reason why, which is that she gave him an erection -- more accurately, she gave him "one damned erection after another," without remission. (Giving John Milton an erection was not the girl's conscious intent, but it just happened to him, every time they met.) And since Christian marriage is Saint Paul's only approved method whereby to deal with that kind of torment, John Milton (being an honourable man) thought it best to marry the girl (1 Cor. 7:9).

Frailty, thy name is woman! After two years of marriage - after just two years of witnessing those insufferable erections that could not be beaten down, or at least, not for long - the poet's young Puritan bride ran away and skipped back home to live with her mother, Mrs. Anne Powell, who likewise gave John an erection; which is why John Milton resented his mother-in-law as well as his estranged wife.

Those were the hardest years of the poet's life - nothing but a daily struggle against involuntary erections, yet here he was, trapped in a loveless marriage to a barely pubescent teenager who lived with her entirely-too-attractive mother. Which is partly why John Milton wrote those four revolutionary Christian pamphlets, correcting Moses' and Jesus' hardline policy on divorce (Mark 10:11-12).

In his Latin correspondence, some of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library, John Milton reports that he was fine when alone in his study, or when hobnobbing with Parliamentarians, or even when having a hasty pudding, or a figgy one, over at the Inns of Court; but let just one good-looker cross his path, showing good ankle between the hem of her dress and the top of her shoe, and it was boing! - instant erection, just like a spring-loaded mechanical device; causing John to exclaim bitterly, "Oh, God, please, not again! Save me from this penal fire!"

It even happened to him once when Oliver Cromwell's wife, Elizabeth Bourchier Cromwell, bent over to pick up a handkerchief that had fallen to the floor. On that occasion there was a lamentable accident ("an hard mishap" [verbatim quote]) with John's ordinarily modest codpiece - an incident so humiliating that John never even wrote a poem about it, although he did apologise, profusely, to Oliver Cromwell, and to Mrs. Cromwell, who saw the whole thing, and then fainted. (John at the time was employed as Cromwell's Latin secretary.)

By the way: It was modesty, not arrogance, that moved John Milton, after that embarrassing incident, to wear a baggy codpiece, with plenty of wiggle room.

Which brings me back to the beginning, when I was explaining why you should give the Lord no wiggle room when you pray: John Milton took his problem to the Lord in prayer, stating in his journal, "Father, I pray Thee, let me not suffer a stiffe joynt when I see a beautifull woman."

And here's how the Lord answered that prayer, in 1651: He struck John Milton blind.

At first, John thought that his blindness was a punishment for his own bad behaviour - which is how that whole thing got going, in Anglo-American Christianity, about how, if you are a boy who does what John Milton used to do, it could make you go blind. But God revealed to John, by means of a dream, that his blindness was actually an answer to his own prayers ¬- because the poet had said, "Father, let me not suffer a stiff joint when I see a beautiful woman."

John Milton then said, "Lord, that is not what I meant, at all" - but it was too late to change the outcome, because the prayer was already answered.

The erections that John Milton suffered in the years 1651-1674, and there were many, even after the Lord answered his prayer, were not from seeing a beautiful woman, it was actually because John had a condition that modern physicians call PSAS ("Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome"). So the chronic "stiffe joynt" problem was not really the women's fault, and it never was; but John Milton never knew that. Even when he wrote Paradise Lost (by dictation, from 1652-1667), John was still under the impression that women, seen or unseen, were to blame for his condition; which is why he makes all of those snide remarks in blank verse about your mother, Eve, in Books IV-V and IX-X of Paradise Lost. Because whenever he pictured Eve in his mind's eye, it was boing! - the same old problem. And there would come no more blank verse to his head for the next twenty minutes or so, until things settled down. John Milton hated that.

But it all turned out for the best: if God had not answered John Milton's prayer in that unusual way, by blinding him, Paradise Lost might never have been completed, and sold to the publisher, Sam Simmons, in 1667, for £5 - which was a tidy sum for a religious poem during the decadent Restoration era.

It was while writing the early books of Paradise Lost that John was introduced to Katherine, a ship captain's daughter, a fat woman whom he had never seen (because he was blind); whom he nonetheless married in 1656, but not for the same old reason as before: John asked fat Kate to marry him (a.) because he needed secretarial assistance with Paradise Lost, and (b.) because Katherine did not have the same pernicious effect on him as Mary Powell and her mother Anne had done. John could dictate blank verse to Kate all night long without feeling so much as a tingle down there.

Kate's surname was Woodcock. Beelzebub made a little joke about that: he said, "The Lord finally gave John Milton just what he always wanted."

- L.

every day reading twenty lines, so I have stille a year to go, I love the text since my schooltime, that's why

This is an excellent edition of "Paradise Lost" to own. The binding and dustjacket are nice, a red ribbon bookmark makes reading it handy, there are gorgeous illustrations before each chapter, as well as introductions by Philip Pullman before each chapter. To understand Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, it is essential to understand "Paradise Lost." Of course, Pullman has his own unique views on Milton's masterpiece, and not everyone will agree with them, but they are interesting to read in any case. Anyway, this is an essential read for anyone who wants a grasp of modern English literature.

No one but no one could resist the charm and beauty of Milton's Paradise Lost and Philip Pullman, best known for "His Dark Materials Trilogy" makes us fall in love with it all over again with his delightful introductions.

This appealing hardcover version in red and black throughout with illustrations of the twelve engravings from the first illustrated edition published in 1688, plus a red ribbon marker is beautifully produced. It also boasts Philip Pullman's delightful and illuminating general introduction and an introduction on each of the twelve books of the poem.

This has to be one of the very best on the market which is an absolute delight to own even if you have hundreds of other versions. The twelve great books of poem of the biblical epic is a must for all classics lovers and Milton's Satan/Lucifer is still the most irresistible and charismatic Devil ever.

No one but no one could resist the charm and beauty of Milton's Paradise Lost!! This appealing hardcover version in red and black throughout with illustrations of the twelve engravings from the first illustrated edition published in 1688, plus a red ribbon marker is beautifully produced. It also boasts Philip Pullman's delightful and illuminating general introduction and an introduction on each of the twelve books of the poem.

This has to be one of the very best on the market which is an absolute delight to own even if you have hundreds of other versions. The twelve great books of poem of the biblical epic is a must for all classics lovers and Milton's Satan/Lucifer is still the most irresistible and charismatic Devil ever.

No one can resist the charm and beauty of Milton's Paradise Lost!! This illustrated hardcover edition with an Introduction by Philip Pullman has to be one of the very best on the market which is an absolute delight to own even if you have hundreds of other versions. The twelve great books of poem of the biblical epic is a must for all classics lovers and Milton's Satan/Lucifer is still the most irresistible and charismatic Devil ever.

Of course Milton's poem greatness one of greatest ten classics of English Literature. This edition is wonderfully easy to read with good paper, margins, typeface. This is not collectors quality but it will serve to be my libraries copy of Paradise Lost.
Loved the essay by Pullman.

Paradise Lost is John Milton's epic poem about the fall of Lucifer and Adam and Eve's banishment from the Garden of Eden. The audacity of Milton opening the poem with declareing that he's going to pursue things unattempted in prose or rhyme and to justify the ways of God to men is enough to get people reading to ifinity. The succsesfull attempt to tell the orgin of Hell and the story of Adam and Eve outside of the bible is a daring mission Milton puts himself through but comes out joyusly triumphant. This poem is such a significant moment in literature that it has become mentioned in various History Channel documentaries and has been put in many prestige formats.
If you see this book on this website, BUY IT IMEDEATLY!

By making the embodiment of evil heroic Paradise Lost undermines our concept of the heroic. The poem does not represent evil as heroic. It represents the traditional virtues of the heroic as evil. Pullman has misread this completely and has framed the poem within this misreading.... "better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" is a fine line, noble, staunch, heroic, but it is also a lie as to the minions who hear it it collapses into "better to serve in hell than serve in heaven," which is facile.

Pullman's trilogy is very well written, but is, in part, a fleshed out misreading of Paradise Lost. That is fine, and I enjoyed reading it. But it is irritating when Pullman presents Milton as some kind of ally in this misreading, which Pullman does with this edition of Paradise Lost, and which Milton is not.

This is "the" Paradise Lost to own... If you are new to Milton, Pullman's comments will guide you along.
What a beautiful edition. Classic illustrations; perfect fonts; Satan himself could never produce such a great volume.

Pullman has no understanding of Milton, actually he can do nothing but project his views on to Milton and Paridise Lost. This does neither he or Milton any good. I think if you want to read Milton then one should read Milton, I really think that after all these years he can stand on his own. But if you are impressed by the cover and the looks of a book, then this shallow self adualtion will do.

I have other editions of Paradise Lost, many with lengthy and preachy introductions, but this one has become my favourite. The design is beautiful, with a great cover, blood red inside covers and red ribbon marker. The original engravings that illustrate the story are a unique feature and look great.
The introduction and notes on all chapters written by Philip Pullman are short, refreshing and suprisingly funny. Even if you studied Paradise in depth, his comments may shed new light on this classic work. As he reminds the readers, these are his views as a fan rather than a scholar, and he tries to clear some cobwebs that gathered on Milton's opus and bring it closer into focus for the modern readers. Among his references are Alfred Hitchcock's movies and novels of Frederick Forsyth. And he tackles that age old dilema- if he is so evil, why do we find Lucifer so damn likeable...?
If you want to read Paradise Lost for the first time, possibly after/before devouring Pullman's own Dark Materials trilogy, look no further than this beautiful edition. And even if you have other copies, this is a great addition to your home library. Nothing wrong with a good looking book, when the content matches the design in quality, as it is the case here.

I have other editions of Paradise Lost, many with lengthy and preachy introductions, but this one has become my favourite. The design is beautiful, with a great cover, blood red inside covers and red ribbon marker. The original engravings that illustrate the story are a unique feature and look great.
The introduction and notes on all chapters written by Philip Pullman are short, refreshing and suprisingly funny. Even if you studied Paradise in depth, his comments may shed new light on this classic work. As he reminds the readers, these are his views as a fan rather than a scholar, and he tries to clear some cobwebs that gathered on Milton's opus and bring it closer into focus for the modern readers. Among his references are Alfred Hitchcock's movies and novels of Frederick Forsyth. And he tackles that age old dilema- if he is so evil, why do we find Lucifer so damn likeable...?
If you want to read Paradise Lost for the first time, possibly after/before devouring Pullman's own Dark Materials trilogy, look no further than this beautiful edition. And even if you have other copies, this is a great addition to your home library. Nothing wrong with a good looking book, when the content matches the design in quality!

Interesting but skimpy comments from Philip Pullman, but the real attractions are a very clean and historically sensitive page design and the Michael Burghers engravings from the first illustrated edition of 1688. I own other PL's, but from now on this is the one I will take down to read.