Books

First Martin edition in book form, a most handsome copy of the scarcer and more desirable large plate issue. John Martin's Paradise Lost holds a strong claim to be the finest illustrated edition of the poem ever produced. Already famous as an artist for his bold and melodramatic paintings, Martin was commissioned by Septimus Prowett to turn his talents to Milton. Unlike other artists in the period who were commissioned for book illustration, who generally produced paintings which were then replicated as engravings, Martin produced his illustrations directly as mezzotints. The possibilities of mezzotints, which allow far greater detail and experimentation with lighting than usual steel engravings, were fully exploited by Martin, and in turn Paradise Lost "was ideal material for Martin, who echoed Milton's solemnity while opening out his cadences in the imagery of groves and chases bathed in silvery light and an underworld where fires tongue the darkness and bridges span nothingness and Satan's armies infest the gloom. In mezzotint Martin's vision thrived" (ODNB). Martin engraved each illustration twice, on a larger and a smaller plate size. The work was issued in eight different formats, four with the larger plates and four with the smaller. There is no priority between the larger or smaller plate issues, or the eight formats. Yet the plate size is a major consideration for the collector and certainly to be preferred, as the larger plates are superior in detail and execution; the smaller mezzotints "suffer greatly from reduction" (Ray, p. 45). Prior to their publication in the present book form, the plates were first published in 12 parts from 1825 to 1827. READ MORE Two volumes bound in one, large quarto (380 x 270 mm). Contemporary burgundy morocco, elaborately gilt-tooled, turn-ins and edges gilt. With 24 mezzotint illustrations by Martin with tissue guards, in the larger format. A very handsome binding with only minor rubbing to extremities, some offsetting from plates, occasional light foxing, chiefly to margins. Generally excellent condition. Muir, p. 75; Ray 69A.

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.