MILTON, JOHN | Paradise Lost. A Poem in Twelve Books. London: by Miles Flesher for Jacob Tonson, 1688

Property from a Florida Collector

MILTON, JOHN

Paradise Lost. A Poem in Twelve Books. London: by Miles Flesher for Jacob Tonson, 1688

Folio (14¾ x 9¼ in.; 375 x 255 mm). Frontispiece portrait by R. White after William Faithorne, and twelve engraved plates chiefly after Medina by Michael Burghers and Peter Paul Bouche, with a list of subscribers at the end. Contemporary calf; rebacked, new endpapers, scuffed and rubbed.

 "The earliest serious effort to illustrate an important work of English poetry" (Hodnett, Five Centuries of Book Illustration, 1988, p.63). Tonson was clearly proud of his achievement in printing this edition of Paradise Lost: he is depicted holding a copy in the portrait of him painted by Godfrey Kneller in about 1720.

REFERENCES:        

Wing M2148; Pforzheimer 720; Wither to Prior 607