Books

2 volumes. 8vo, 202 x 123 mms., pp. [xvi], liii [liv - lviii tributes],.25 [26 blank], 500; [ii], 456 [457 - 582 Index], engraved frontispiece and 5 other engraved plates in volume 1, engraved frontispiece and 5 other engraved plates in volume 2, handsomely bound in later (early 19th century) full panelled calf, with a gilt border on each cover and an elongated lozenge in lighter calf with interior gilt border on each cover, spines gilt in compartments, marbled end-papers; some water-staining in last 30 leaves of volume 1, most noticeably in last 11 leaves, marginal worming in about half the leaves of volume 2, occasionally affecting one or two letters of text, most noticeably in the index, very slight worming of lower rear joint volume 2, slight wear to joints, but a very attractive binding, with the small rectangular binder's ticket of Dickenson, St. Edwards's Passage, Cambridge on the front paste-down end-paper of volume 1, the rubbers stamp of "Richd. Hopkins St Ives Huntingdonshire" on the verso of the front free end-paper of each volume, and the contemporary autograph "Miss W E Coote" on the recto of the front free end-paper of each volume. Although the title-page is dated 1770, the typography is more consistent with printing types found in the early 19th century; moreover, it is printed on wove paper, while the text is printed on laid paper and is clearly from the 18th century. There appear to be three issues of this work in 1770, with various names in the imprint. This seems to be ESTC N32814 (O, PEN; MH; ZWTU). The collation does not match that of Coleridge 130 or 131.

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.