Paradise Lost

by John Milton

John Leonard (Introduction)

'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.


Edited with an introduction and notes by JOHN LEONARD

• ISBN10: 0140424393
• ISBN13: 9780140424393
• Publish Date: 27 February 2003 (first published December 1951)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 10 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 512
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140424393

Reviews

[bearley]

Really appreciate the novel as a whole and the history of it, but it was just so much work to read this one. There was also inconsistencies between the prose that threw me off, as well as with the ordering of the events that happened.
Also, I went into the novel expecting it to be entirely in the devil’s perspective and I his presence was almost nonexistent in the last quarter.

[Sarah Says]

I made it through book one and book two, but I can’t contemplate reading ten more parts. I've got so much going on at the moment that my brain can’t slow down. I think I’ll try picking this up in a few more years and see how I go.

[ladygrey]

I shouldn't count this because I only half read it for school. But I remember the gist of it.