Paradise lost : John Milton (2nd ed)

"Longman Annotated English Poets" - General Editor: John Barnard, Founding Editor: F.

W. Bateson. "Paradise Lost" is the greatest work of one of the most acclaimed poets in English literature.

It has had a profound influence on Western culture, and has attracted a vast amount of critical commentary of every sort.

First published in 1968, Alastair Fowler's annotated edition of "Paradise Lost" is acknowledged as the most authoritative guide to this major work, and to the critical analysis that it has prompted.

This important new edition maintains the detailed annotation that has for many years provided an interesting and comprehensive explanation to this difficult but compelling poem, making it accessible both to the student and the general reader.

It is the only recent edition of "Paradise Lost" to be based on the text of the first (1667) edition, now widely accepted to be closer to Milton's intention than that of 1674.

The revised introduction describes the poem and its remarkable critical reception, surveying the nine thousand or so critical contributions devoted to it, not least during the last thirty years. Besides providing glosses and illustrations of sources and analogues, the notes refer to extra-literary contexts, religious, political and scientific, and aim in particular to explain Milton's imaginary astronomy more fully than any other edition has attempted.

The notes also provide an unusual amount of critical commentary, in such a way as to engage with current thought about the poem.

They assimilate or reject much criticism of "Paradise Lost", giving guidance on the current issues, and what sorts of assumptions and interpretations need to be made by an informed reader.

Alastair Fowler is Regius Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, and was formerly Professor of English at the University of Virginia, USA.

Reviews of previous edition: This is a very Bible of a Milton, and the editors should be upheld forever as the supreme example to all future editors and annotators of English verse. - Selina Hastings, "The Daily Telegraph". Those familiar with the complexities and indecisions of Milton scholarship know how formidable a task it is to prepare an adequately annotated edition of the poems. Mr Carey and Mr Fowler have tackled this task with zest and discrimination as well as perseverance.

For several years to come their work will be indispensable to both scholars and students. - "The Times Literary Supplement".