A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton (Three Parts in Five Volumes)

New York: Columbia University Press, 1975. Very Good/Very Good. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970, 1972, 1975. Octavo; Vol I xii + 387pp, Vol IIa xviii + 338pp, Vol IIb continued pagination through p734, Vol IIc continued pagination through p1143, Vol IV xxiv + 379pp. Slate blue coated jackets. Prussian blue cloth with gilt spine stamping.

Minor color loss with nano-chipping to crowns and feet of jacket spines. Various states of mild sunning to jackets. All bindings solid, clean, and bright, with only minor wear to spine crowns and feet. A very few pencil notations in Vols IIa and IIc. Textblocks otherwise unmarred and unmarked.

These five volumes are the only ones ever published in the variorum series that was announced to comprise at least eight. The Miltonist superstar editors include Bart Giamatti, former president of Yale and Major League Baseball Commissioner (as well as father of actor Paul Giamatti).

Most remarkable, however, is the vast contribution of perhaps the least famous editor, the late Edward Weismiller. He was the youngest poet ever to win the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, and, during World War II, a member of the OSS. He was losing his sight and nearly completely blind in the final years of preparing his never-surpassed work on Milton's verse forms and prosody. Milton could have had no more deeply attuned a commentator.