Paradise Lost· A Poem in Twelve Books. The Author John Milton. The Third Edition. Revised and Augmented by the same Author

London: Printed by S. Simmons next door to the Golden Lion in Aldersgate-street, 1678. THIRD EDITION of "Paradise Lost" bound with the SECOND EDITIONS of "Paradise Regain'd" and "Samson Agonistes"(see below). Hardcover. Fine. With the added engraved portrait of Milton by Dolle after Faithorne. Bound in contemporary paneled calf with ornaments in blind (discreet restoration to head and tail of spine and front hinge). The text is in fine condition, with just a few small blemishes and a few minor marginal dampstains; last leaf of second part with small tear at head. This edition of "Paradise Lost" includes commendatory poems by S.B. in Latin and by Andrew Marvell in English. Provenance: 17th c. signature of Elizabeth Hawkins at head of first title page. [with:]

Paradise regain'd. A poem. In IV. books. To which is added Samson Agonistes. The author John Milton.

London: Printed for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleet-street near Temple-Bar, 1680

Octavo: 132, [4] p. Collation: (with the initial license leaf and the final 2 advert. leaves) A-H8, I4

"'Paradise Lost' is at once a deeply traditional and a boldly original poem. Milton takes pains to fulfill the traditional prescriptions of the epic form; he gives us love, war, supernatural characters, a descent into Hell, a catalogue of warriors, all the conventional items of epic machinery. Yet no poem in which the climax of the central action is a woman eating a piece of fruit can be a conventional epic... The way of life which Adam and Eve take up as the poem ends is that of the Christian pilgrimage through this world. Paradise was no place or condition in which to exercise Christian heroism as Milton conceives it. Expelled from Eden, our first 'grand parents' pick up the burdens of humanity as we know them, sustained by a faith that we also know, and go forth to seek a blessing that we do not know yet. They are to become wayfaring, warfaring Christians, like John Milton; and in this condition, with its weaknesses and strivings and inevitable defeats, there is a glory that no devil can ever understand. Thus Milton strikes, humanly as well as artistically, a grand resolving chord. It is the careful, triumphant balancing and tempering of this conclusion which makes Milton's poem the noble architecture it is; and which makes of the end a richer, if not a more exciting, experience than the beginning." (Norton Anthology of English Literature)

"Milton writes not only as a literary connoisseur but also as a scholar, appealing in his readers to a love of ordered learning like his own. Even the echoes of ancient phrase should often be considered, not as mere borrowings, conscious, or unconscious, but as allusions intended to carry with them, when recognized, the connotation of their original setting...The extraordinary thing is the way in which this object is accomplished without loss of poetic quality. The secret seems to be the degree to which the materials of learning have become associated with sensuous imagery and with moving poetical ideas. Milton is erudite, but all erudition is not for him of equal value. Winnowed, humanized, and touched with the fire of imagination, his studies have passed into vital experience and afford him as natural a body of poetical data as birds and flowers."(Hanford, A Milton Handbook, "Milton's Style and Versification - with Special Reference to 'Paradise Lost'").