John Milton (1608–1674) Paradise lost. A poem in twelve books. Second edition (London: S. Simmons, 1674). Ee.4.18, frontispiece portrait and title page.

The most notable change to the second, ‘Revised and Augmented’ edition of Paradise Lost is its redistribution of the poem into twelve books. This recasting was achieved by simply splitting Books
VII and X in half. It may have been undertaken to mirror more closely the twelve-book structure of Virgil’s Aeneid. The second edition shows a new concern for enshrining the figure of Milton as its author; for example, it is headed by Walter Dolle’s portrait frontispiece, copied from William Faithorne’s portrait for the History of Britain (1670) (no. 59).

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