"BOOKS OF CONSEQUENCE… IN ELEGANT DRESS": HANDSOMELY BOUND BASKERVILLE PRESS EDITIONS OF MILTON'S PARADISE LOST AND PARADISE REGAIN'D
MILTON, John. Paradise Lost. WITH: Paradise Regain'd… To Which Is Added Samson Agonistes: and Poems Upon Several Occasions. Birmingham: John Baskerville, 1759. Two volumes. Quarto, early 20th-century full mottled calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, burgundy and tan morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
Beautifully printed 1759 second Baskerville Press editions of Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regain'd, issued just one year after the first editions, with frontispiece portrait of Milton by Miller in Paradise Lost, beautifully bound in full mottled calf-gilt by Bayntun.
"Paradise Lost is generally conceded to be one of the greatest poems in the English language; and there is no religious epic in English which measures up to Milton's masterpiece" (Magill, 511). In Baskerville's three-page preface to Paradise Lost, which appeared only in his 1758 first edition, he stated his aims and ideals as a fine printer: "It is not my desire to print many books; but such only as are books of Consequence… which the public may be pleased to see in an elegant dress…" Paradise Lost first published 1667; Paradise Regain'd, 1671. These editions from the text of Bishop Thomas Newton. Title page of Paradise Lost with colon after "Birmingham" (no priority established). First state title page of Paradise Regain'd, with the first word on line 8 erased and overprinted to read "SAMSON" (it was originally printed as "SAMPSON" and the erased letters are still faintly visible; in the second state the title page has been correctly reprinted). Engraved frontispiece portrait of Milton by Miller in Paradise Lost is not present in all copies. Gaskell 6, 7.
Minor rubbing to joints. About-fine condition.