1667 Edition

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John Milton
1608–1674

Paradise Lost.

London: Printed, and are to be sold by Peter Parker under Creed Church neer Aldgate; and by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Bishopsgate-street; and Matthias Walker,under St. Dunstons Church in Fleet-street, 1667.

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan

PML 963
Description: 

As sales of the book improved, and perhaps after the royal library had accepted a presentation copy (the king's copy is displayed in the next case), Simmons's anxiety subsided, and he began to draw from the stock of alternative title pages. Milton's full name was retained on the title pages of the first edition in 1668 and 1669. The book was never issued with a frontispiece portrait of the author. The portrait that appears opposite the title pages of these copies is William Dolle's engraving (after William Faithorne's painting of Milton), published in the second and third editions (1674 and 1678), and inserted into these copies of the first edition at a later date.