Paradise Lost by John Milton. Illustrated by Gustave Dore. Collier (19th cent.).

The Gustave Dore illustrated, folio, edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost, printed by Collier and housed in one of their delightful publisher's bindings with gilt decoration.

With fifty illustrations by the well-regarded Dore!

Also includes Notes, and a Life of Milton by Robert Vaughan, D.D..

No publisher's date, but Worldcat lists OCLC# 978801104 at 313 pages, published by Collier and dates it to 1892.

About Paradise Lost -

“Milton began Paradise Lost in 1658 prior to his imprisonment and completed it in 1663. Following a brief account of Man’s Fall, he takes up the story with Satan and his angels lying on Hell’s burning lake, and closes the poem with the angel Michael leading Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Whilst early editions did not sell quickly, the fourth edition published in 1688 by Tonson and Bently, established the poem’s reputation as one of the great works of English literature.” (University College of Oxford, web article titled Milton’s illustrated Paradise Lost)

“By 1688, when England was on the verge of the Whig revolution, Milton's reputation had revived considerably. He was commended for his republicanism as well as his record as a defender of liberty. His supporters believed that his greatest poetic achievement merited this handsome, monumental edition... Milton had previously reorganized the poem into twelve books (by splitting Books 7 and 10 of the original) to parallel Virgil's Aeneid more closely.” (from The Morgan Library’s catalogue description, PML 36799)

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 33.5 x 25 x 3 cm., folio. Cloth publisher's binding with pictorial gilt and black front board and spine decorations. All edges gilt. Illustrated with fifty illustrations. Pages - xlv, 313, (1)

Condition -

See pictures. Some edge and corner wear to binding. Chip at fore-edge of binding cloth, 2 cm., at fore-edge of front board. Some loss of gilt to binding, especially at spine. Some rubs to rear board. White mark at rear joint. Internally clean; some toning throughout, as is typical of this period's paper. Occasional rust spot. Tissue in place at frontis. Upper corner of title page just chipped. A fold crease on the first page of the "Contents" section. No writing or tears that I find.