The Complete Works of John Milton

This edition of Paradise Lost (1667, 1674) makes its own distinctive contribution to the editorial tradition. It presents the two lifetime versions of Milton's poem in juxtaposition with each other. However, unlike previous scholarly editions it does not attempt to synthesise the two lifetime versions into a text that never existed. Nor does it always privilege the later version over the earlier. It presents, too, a new intellectual context for interpreting the work, demonstrating its intricate intersections with the political and religious controversies of its age, and it connects it more closely than hitherto with Milton's major theological treatise, De Doctrina Christiana. It also offers a more detailed account of its publishing history and the unusual organisation within the booktrade contrived to distribute Milton's finest achievement in an England devastated by the Great Fire of London.