John Milton - Paradise Lost elephant folio - 1794

Rare book Paradise Lost by John Milton 1794, elephant folio.

Antiquarian book The Poetical Works of John Milton Volume 1 containing Paradise Lost Books 1-6, this is the large folio format edition including 'A Life of the Author by William Hayley', published in London by Bulmer and Co for J & J Boydell, and George Nicol in 1794. Rare book.

Tightly bound hardback with original boards and binding and clean text and marbled end pages, some marks, cockling and foxing, but still a reasonable copy with tissue guards to illustrations, a number of good plates, the 'Adam and Eve' is particularly attractive. Armorial bookplate for the Bell family of Woolsington, Northumberland.

Includes the famous engravings from Richard Westall. The Boydells used Westall to illustrate their two greatest published works, the two greatest masters of the English language, John Milton and William Shakespeare. This is the largest, finest and most impressive presentation. The Boydell text sits well these magnificent plates, impressively laid out and making use of the fonts of William Martin.

Westall would become quite famous for these illustrations and would later serve as Princess Victoria’s drawing master until the time of his death in 1836.

In Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes Milton revived the heroic verse of Homer and Virgil to frame the tale of Satan and Paradise that has become the best-known epic poem written in English. He had difficulty in finding a publisher because of the plague of 1665, which killed many pressmen, and the Great Fire of the following year, which destroyed many printing houses—and those publishers who were still operating were wary of the project because of Milton's anti-Restoration sympathies.
A truly towering figure, Milton remains one of the most celebrated and analysed poets in English literature. Dryden described ‘Paradise Lost’ as ‘one of the greatest, most noble and sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced,’ while Blake, keying in on the poem’s heretical implications, described Milton as ‘a true Poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.’

10 fine large plates, most tissue guarded.

The book measures 42.7 x 34 x 5cm (16.81" x 13.38" x 2").