Item #48952 Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes. John Milton.
Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes
Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes
Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes
Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes
"the most perfect poem extant" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes

London: Printe for J.M[acock]. for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleetstreet, near Temple-Bar, 1671. Very Good. Item #48952

London: Printed by J.M[acock]. for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleetstreet, near Temple-Bar, 1671. First Edition, second issue with "loah" corrected to "loth" on page 67. Octavo; contemporary unlettered dark calf professionally rebacked; sides bordered in blind; neat professional repair to joints; dark topstain; [4],111,[1],101,[3]pp.; includes license leaf and final errata leaf, collated and complete. Light wear and bumping to boards; binding sound with old reinforcements to hinges; armorial bookplate presumably of Lord Carlingford to front pastedown reading "Forte Scutum Salus Ducum," earlier ownership inscription of a John Germy to ffep; toning and occasional spotting, overall a Very Good and sound copy.

TLS from bookseller Charles J. Sawyer of London to a collector in Australia also laid in, dated 1934, noting the book is complete and the original calf binding is the "right state from a discriminating collector's point of view."

Though often dismissed as a lesser sequel to Paradise Lost, Milton's "Brief Epic" follows Satan and his demons' temptation of Christ in the desert. Samuel Taylor Coleridge deemed it "the most perfect poem extant." Scholar Barbara Kiefer Lewalski also notes that Milton expands upon the brief but important episode in the gospel of Luke; "it is designed to include and evaluate, through the brilliant and complex arguments of Christ and Satan about the meanings and implications of the temptations offered, the fundamental values, heroic ideals, conceptions of duty, and standards of excellence which derive from the Classical-Judeo-Christian heritage." She continues, "the poem's dramatic situation presents a myth of human process, of human striving towards ideals of comprehension and order, of wisdom and noble action which must remain relevant and powerful as long as such ideals hold any meaning for us" ( pp. 4 & 356).

References:

ESTC R299; Wing M2152; Grolier - Wither to Prior 613

Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, Milton's Brief Epic: The Genre, Meaning, and art of Paradise Regained. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1966
.

Price: $9,500.00

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