Books

Two fine full polished leather-bound volumes printed by the celebrated Lunar Society member of industrial revolution Birmingham. The spine is densely gilt decorated in panels demarcated by raised bands. Two labels "MILTON'S WORKS" and the volume number on each."Baskerville 1758" discretely at the foot of each spine. All edges gilt. Marbled endpapers, the fixed endpapers edged with the folded-over casing leather richly decorated with repeating gilt motifs. At the top edge of the verso of the front FEP, of each volume the binder's mark "Broca . Kaufmann". To quote from a beautiful web page of Underhill Books (I presume they won't mind) "Master binder Lucien Broca was a Frenchman who came to London to work for Antoine Chatelin, and from 1876 to 1889 he was in partnership with Simon Kaufmann." So that gives a date range for this handsome binding, which is very much of its period. The binding appears to gave been executed for "Percy Close", whose name is each FEP. The pages of each volume are in excellent condition, with no wear and tear or significant foxing, Pagination of Volume I. Blank leaf, title leaf, two leaves (signature A3) of which 3 pp are Baskerville's Preface, 18pp subscribers,which include "Mr Boulton", Abraham Darby and Erasmus Darwin; three more leaves including a title page,a two page appreciation by Andrew Marvell and a page headed "The Verse". ALL pages so far unnumbered; then title page to the First Book (signature small c but this Signature has only two leaves, the verso of the second being page 4) Page 5 has 8vo signature capital B; numbering through then conventional until "The End" on page 416.; finally one blank leaf. Pagination of Volume II. Blank leaf, from paper maybe inserted by the binder), title leaf, then signature a starts the lxix pages of "The LIFE of MILTON" but the last 4vo signature has only three leaves, but there is nothing missing before the next title leaf "THE FIRST BOOK OF PARADISE REGAINED", which is the first leaf of 8vo (!) signature A. Yet the first numbered page, 6, should be page 4, counting to include the title leaf, and all leaves of A are present. Pagination then continues in Roman, through the four books of Paradise to Samson Agonistes, only, after the second page of the Samson text, which is P.100, to jump to 102 on the opposite recto. No text is missing. This eccentric page numbering continues to the conclusion of Samson on P.163. a verso. There follows the title leaf of "POEMS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.", with a historical note on the verso. The text starts on the following unnumbered recto (signature L), and its verso is numbered 166. Back to normal by slipping in an extra-to-numbering anonymous page. All is quiet thereafter until the finis on P.390, followed by another blank leaf inserted by the binder. Question: Is a frontispiece for Volume 1 called for? It seems very unlikely that any such was ever included in this copy as it shows no signs of neglect before the Victorian binders' work. Baskerville! You are keeping me up late, and I should be practising Bach's Magnificat in D Major, to be performed by The Derbyshire Singers the day after tomorrow!.

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse.