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Details
MILTON, John (1608-1674). Paradise Lost. London: Jacob Tonson, 1707.
8°. Engraved frontispiece, 12 engraved plates by H. Eland, contemporary calf gilt, covers with inner panel of triple fillets with fleurons at corners, outer panel of double fillets (rebacked, spine frayed at head and foot, upper cover detached, corners bumped). Provenance: Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), with his annotations in ink and pencil; Joseph Frank (Ritson's nephew, bookplate, with place name "Seaton" in manuscript).
"Eighth" edition. RITSON'S NOTES TO THIS EDITION COMBINE HIS CHARACTERISTIC PEDANTRY WITH GENUINE SCHOLARSHIP AND AN IDEAL OF ACCURACY UNCOMMON FOR ITS TIME. His pen-and-ink note on the front free endpaper transcribes the title page to the first edition, and includes the information that "the first edition of this admirable (though unequal) poem" has been "carefully compared" with "the present copy ... & the variations minutely noted." The following blank contains a carefully copied 1½pp. quotation from Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice, which treats Milton's devil as a rebel disdaining "to be subdued by despotic power." Key passages are scored in pencil while attention is drawn to corruptions or alterations of the original text. Some quotations are given from the first edition, there are also references to other poems and occasional lines of criticism. The serpent's question in Book IX "inferior who is free?" is underlined and marked "NB."
8°. Engraved frontispiece, 12 engraved plates by H. Eland, contemporary calf gilt, covers with inner panel of triple fillets with fleurons at corners, outer panel of double fillets (rebacked, spine frayed at head and foot, upper cover detached, corners bumped). Provenance: Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), with his annotations in ink and pencil; Joseph Frank (Ritson's nephew, bookplate, with place name "Seaton" in manuscript).
"Eighth" edition. RITSON'S NOTES TO THIS EDITION COMBINE HIS CHARACTERISTIC PEDANTRY WITH GENUINE SCHOLARSHIP AND AN IDEAL OF ACCURACY UNCOMMON FOR ITS TIME. His pen-and-ink note on the front free endpaper transcribes the title page to the first edition, and includes the information that "the first edition of this admirable (though unequal) poem" has been "carefully compared" with "the present copy ... & the variations minutely noted." The following blank contains a carefully copied 1½pp. quotation from Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice, which treats Milton's devil as a rebel disdaining "to be subdued by despotic power." Key passages are scored in pencil while attention is drawn to corruptions or alterations of the original text. Some quotations are given from the first edition, there are also references to other poems and occasional lines of criticism. The serpent's question in Book IX "inferior who is free?" is underlined and marked "NB."
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