Paradise Lost

VERY GOOD — BOARDS: Minor fading of gilt script on spine. Scuffs to crown and foot of spine w/very small tears to latter. Very small tear to upper right edge of spine. Scuffs to all outside corners w/small tear to bottom front. Some spotting/discoloration to both boards, primarily back. Gilt illustration in good shape, front. BOOK: Cracked hinge, reverse of first flyleaf page; hinge starting FFEP. Minor soil spots to FFEP. Age toning, primarily to outside page margins. Please read description and inspect photos closely for condition details, as this is an old and somewhat fragile copy. THIS IS A LARGE BOOK.

Here on offer is a very nice example of John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, considered his masterpiece, and helping to solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. This handsome tome is dramatically illustrated by Gustave Doré and bound in quarto. This copy is an Altemus Edition, published by Henry Altemus Company in 1889. This copy is without the dust jacket.

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" 'An endless moral maze, introducing literature's first Romantic, Satan' — John Carey

In his epic poem Paradise Lost Milton conjured up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties - blind, bitter and briefly in danger of execution - Paradise Lost's apparent ambivalence has led to intense debate about whether it manages to 'justify the ways of God to men' or exposes the cruelty of authority."

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JOHN MILTON (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.
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PAUL GUSTAVE LOUIS CHRISTOPHE DORÉ (6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravings illustrating classic literature, especially those for the Vulgate Bible and Dante's Divine Comedy. These achieved great international success, and he became renowned for printmaking, although his role was normally as the designer only; at the height of his career some 40 block-cutters were employed to cut his drawings onto the wooden printing blocks, usually also signing the image.

He created over 10,000 illustrations, the most important of which were copied using an electrotype process using cylinder presses, allowing very large print runs to be published simultaneously in many countries.

The above text was taken from, respectively, Penguin Books Limited (via Google Books) and Wikipedia.