I once said in another review that the number of editions of Milton's poetry could make choosing which one to purchase a tedious process. Gordon Campbell, who revised William Riley Parker's beautifully written biography of Milton, introduces the poems of this Everyman edition with a nice essay and an invaluable chronological table that aligns the poet's life with historical and literary events.

Also, Campbell's own voice comes across clearly which is unusual for an editor. In the second clause of the opening sentence of his introduction, Campbell insightfully speaks of Milton's bizarre talent in checking his great learning against his innate drive to create: " . . . it is remarkable that the weight of his erudition did not crush his genius for writing poetry."

Campbell's humility, which is felt in his confessions of weaknesses as an editor and scholar, comforts the reader through the most allusively amazing read that is Milton's poetry: "In struggling to avoid the occasional perils of dependence on earlier editors I have doubtless made mistakes of my own invention . . . ".

The leaves of the cloth-bound (not the paperback) Everyman edition are acid-free and sewn in signatures.

If you already have his autiobiography (Take Me Home) and any other greatest hits songbook, save your money (although it does have one of my photos, uncredited, of course) :)

Edmund Fuller does an excellent job explaining the life of John Milton. John Milton is a famous author that lived in England during his life span from 1608 to 1674. Milton led a very interesting life ranging from his suspensions from Cambridge to his role in the English Civil War. John Milton is most known for his book, "Paradise Lost." This book explains the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
Edmund Fuller does an excellent job in portraying the thoughts of John Milton. The reader understands the excitement and anticipation as Milton waits in the lobby to see Galileo Galilei. The reader also experiences sadness when Milton can not win the heart of a singer from Italy.
The only complaint I have about this book is that Fuller does not tell often enough when an event happens in Milton's life. This leaves the reader often to guess the year in which an event happened. Other than that, Edmund Fuller does an excellent job explaining the life of John Milton.

In this critical study and new reading of Milton, Michael Liebexplores the poet's texts through a vision of Milton as self-imagedbisexual with fears of dismemberment. Milton's hidden message, according to Lieb, in texts like Lycidas, A Mask, Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes, as well as in the sonnets and some of Milton's polemic tracts, is the poet's own internal vision of self which Lieb sets up in his introduction with the story of the disinterring and sparagmos of the poet's corpse and the subsequent arguments over the authentication of the body.

Lieb's approach to Milton is in three parts, in which he describes Milton in terms of the archetype of the Orpheic poet torn to pieces by wild women, the Old Testament view of the virgin-matron, and then integrates these images with his interpretation of Milton as artist and politician who re-visions himself in the context of such mythic images and in light of Milton's own discourse with contemporaries. Lieb begins each section by setting up the recurrent theme of violent dismemberment and loss in Greco-Roman and Biblical myths which he sees as the basis of Milton's works, discussing the stories of Orpheus, of the Levites concubine ravished by the Benjaminites and of blind Samson.

He also discusses the violence inherent in the political-religious arena of Milton's day that allowed the beheading of a king, the mutilation and disembowelment of the regicides, and atrocities like massacre of the Waldensians at Piedmont in 1655. Pointing to Milton's Sonnet 18, written in response to the incident in Piedmont, Lieb argues that Milton's abhorrence of extreme violence involving mutilation, dismemberment, or any rending of the physical body stems not just from his equation of the individual body with the rending of the Body of Christ, i.e.: the Church. Lieb, while recognizing the Milton's equation of the Orpheic poet torn apart by Bacchantes with the crucified Christ as integral to Milton's own religious vision, also sees a deeper "Secret History" in Milton's work in which Milton is relating his own identification with and fear of physical dismemberment or sparagmos. To emphasize his point Lieb draws directly on Miltonic texts and sets up parallels between these and specific incidents in Milton's personal life and career.

In part two of his book, Lieb introduces the story of the rape and death of the Levite's concubine and discusses Milton's treatment of females images, particularly in Paradise Lost. Lieb's argument here is that Milton is revisiting the issue of female rape from a sociopolitical perspective. Lieb feels that Milton's own gender crisis stems from his university days and a nickname he acquired, "the Lady of Christ's College," which was based in the fairness of his coloration and an effeminacy of carriage. Lieb takes this incident a step further insisting that Milton's own fragile sexual self-identity was shaped here and, further, that it is then reflected in his treatment of female figures in his text. Milton, Lieb says, is seeking to subsume his own internal female/bisexuality in the gender role reversals of "dominant female" figures like the Domina defending her chastity in A Mask, and Eve coercing Adam in Paradise Lost.

Lieb also points to Milton's divorce tracts, claiming Milton's intention here is a more liberal interpretation of the issue of fornication and adultery, which, according to Lieb, stems from Milton's own identification with the Levite's concubine of Judges 19 and reinterprets female "whoorishness" as not simply a sexual behavior but as woman in argument with male authority. Lieb claims Milton's own sexual identity is at issue here and uses Rabbinical critiques to reinforce his view of Milton's text as reflecting Milton's struggle to come to grips with his own bisexual leanings. Milton, says Lieb, must reevaluate and reinstate the female through his writing to come to grips with his own internal virgin-matron complex.

Milton's struggle with self-identity is also the focus of part three of Lieb's book in which Lieb now places a new historicist twist into what has, so far, been a psychological (almost Freudian) interpretation of Milton the poet. Here Lieb makes his most far-reaching claim, that it is Milton's own self-fashioning that is revealed in Samson Agonistes. Lieb draws from Milton's polemic tracts, specifically Pro Se Defensio and Defensio Secunda, to define what he calls Milton's "theatre of assault" in which the now blind poet is effectively reshaping and reclaiming his own reputation and reestablishing his self-identity as masculine, virile, and physically whole. Quoting Milton's condemnation of those who would mock him, Lieb points out Milton's feelings of self-rightness and divine favor and sees them in a Pauline paradox of "strength perfected in weakness." By refashioning his own physical bodily repristination in the destruction of his adversaries, Lieb argues, Milton is protecting himself from the internal femininity and the external dismemberment, sparagmos, he has always feared.

Throughout his work, Lieb uses Biblical references to tease out hidden meanings in Milton's texts. He supports his arguments with both textual material from Milton's writings and anecdotal evidence from Milton's life, and yet one can't help but feel that Lieb is occasionally reaching too far in the conclusions he draws, particularly in the third section where he sees intentional direction on the part of the poet as "self-refashioner." Lieb does argue with great erudition, which is apparent both in his conscious use of language and his remarkable ability to draw inferences from Milton's sources in both Classical and Biblical myth. He does tend to build, not on, but rather more often against, the current criticism of other Milton scholars. Over all this is an exceptional piece of scholarly piece of writing, aimed at serious Milton scholars and well worth reading whether or not one accepts Lieb's thesis on the crisis of Milton's self-identity. What Lieb has provided here is a fascinating, and well cross-referenced, theory that is not for the faint-hearted or fair-weather scholar.

Paradise Lost can be a very difficult poem to read. However, this edition, which contains only the first two books (a good starting point), has a commentary section which was extremely helpful to me as a first time Milton reader. Many of the allusions are clarified to cater t the modern day reader who hasn't yet grown accustomed to Milton's style.

Excluding the lengthy epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, this Dover Thrift edition provides nearly all of John Milton's poetry that you are likely to encounter, including the 45-page dramatic poem Samson Agonistes.

I recommend this Dover edition, but with some reservation. The price is low, the print is large and easy to read, but the footnotes are sparse. I relied on both a good dictionary for help with archaic words and on Thomas Bulfinch's "The Age of Fable" for aid in unraveling obscure poetic references to Greek and Roman mythology.

If you don't have some familiarity with Shakespeare or other 17th century poets or writers, you might consider an edition with more complete annotation. I suggest either the Oxford World's Classics "Selected Poetry" by John Milton (more extensive footnotes, but somewhat inaccessible in an appendix) or the Everyman edition, "Complete English Poems, Of Education and Aeropagitica" (footnotes at the page bottom, but the print throughout is a bit small.)

The World's Classics "Selected Poetry" by John Milton is virtually a complete collection of his English poetry. The price is low, the font size is quite adequate, and best of all it offers extensive annotation, a real asset to most readers.

The annotation is located in an appendix rather than as footnotes on each page. I first read a page of poetry unaided, moved to the appendix to browse the appropriate "footnotes", and then returned to the page of poetry. This may sound awkward, but it worked well.

Unlike many collections, this edition contained all of Milton's English sonnets, several which I had not encountered before. The lengthy "Paradise Lost" is moderately abridged and a new reader might find this a good way to become acquainted with Milton's epic poem. But a better approach is to read the unabridged Norton edition of "Paradise Lost". Look at the various reader reviews and decide for yourself.

I particularly enjoyed Samson Agonistes, a rather long, but not difficult poem. I suggest first reading the Biblical story of Samson in Judges, Chapters 13-16, to better appreciate Milton's development of this classic tale. The suffering of the blind Samson in captivity is poignant, particularly as Milton himself was blind and aging when he created this remarkable poetic story.

My first impressions of America were in Rapid City, South Dakota (7-10 October 2001) and the patriotism and hospitality of Dakotans set the pattern for an enjoyable three week tour (that included NM, NYC and DC).

John Milton's concise 200 page history of the Coyote State filled in some gaps for me and simply whetted the appetite for a return visit.

Particularly interesting was the East-West divide caused by the Missouri river and how, traditionally, the political clout in the State has been in the hands of the easterners.

The conflicts between Red and White, that still persist, started with the gold rush, an event that sparked the major migration of white settlers into the territory.

Colourful characters like Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Hugh Glass, Red Cloud, George Custer and others give the flavour of pioneer times and the imagery of the past was enhanced by me being able to see some of the historic places in the Black Hills as well as some of the big sky country of the prairie-both of which the author conveys well in his text.

The rural nature of much of South Dakota, with wide open spaces reminds me of my own environment (in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia) and the history of gold rushes,early inter ethnic clashes, achievement of statehood (SD was a year ahead of Western Australia), friendly people and rural conservatism is something that I can clearly recognise and which Milton explains.

If you want a good concise backgrounder to SD (with a useful section on further reading) then Milton's book is a good starting point.

As for South Dakotans in general I admire their patriotism (after Sep.11) with flags and signs everywhere- and in particular I thank Pastor Jim Patrick, and members of his United Methodist Church, who took time to make sure this traveller from a distant land not only enjoyed reading about the history of the State but also saw South Dakotans of the present for what they are-a gracious, generous and decent people.

A fairly irritating book about an important subject, this book is loaded with a collection of traveling non-sequiturs that are collated and vaguely related to findings of the author as he makes the same trip that Sir John Mandeville made starting in 1322. Mandeville wrote a book after his 34-year journey called The Travels that influenced many important people after him. For example, Christopher Columbus, influenced by Mandeville's book, proposed his voyage to the new world to Queen Isabella of Spain and was turned down. Months later, after Isabella had read Mandeville's book she was approached again by Columbus and she changed her mind, funding his history making voyage to the new world. Mandeville's book was used by many others as a reference for hundreds of years until somewhere in the 1800's when he and his book were discredited and Mandeville generally became known as a fraud, never having actually traveled to the places he claimed to have visited. In The Riddle and the Knight, Milton's trip to all the same places starts off with the promise of getting to the bottom of a very old debate, "Did Mandeville actually take the trip he claimed he took? By actually making the same trip today, what could be found to either prove or disprove Mandeville once and for all?" That's a great idea but the writer got bogged down including almost everything that happened to him on his 20th century journey whether it added to proving Mandeville's journey or not. On page 189, Milton is staying in a monastery in Egypt and two U.N. peacekeepers stumble upon the ancient institution. One of them is an American who is remarkably like Gomer Pyle. Halfway through this jewel, I paused and thought, "This episode will have no bearing whatsoever on what Milton is doing with his story." True enough, it didn't. It was simply a loud and colorful, intrusion into the quiet life of the monastery Milton was staying in. "What the heck. Let's put it in the book." Milton was fair in citing the frequent number of times that almost every ancient author would plagiarize one another and that Mandeville was not much different. Unlike the book's title, The Riddle and the Knight, any references to a riddle somewhere in the book were sparse, casual, and hugely unfulfilled. The author also missed the opportunity to properly observe that all early discoverers and travelers were at some point liars who all knew that keeping the attention of those who listened would sometimes require mention of the strange men foreign lands who have no heads, or really giant women from another distant land or strange elixirs that have remarkable healing powers. It's all part of giving the audience what they want or need to hear, from P.T. Barnum to Ripley's Believe It Or Not to the nightly news.

This book wears two faces: 1) a travel book, and 2) an attempt at some serious historical research. The author, Giles Milton, a professional writer/journalist, sets out to retrace the path of the legendary fourteenth-century traveler and writer, Sir John Mandeville. Milton's ostensible goal is to rehabilitate Mandeville's controversial reputation.

Sir John Mandeville was the alleged author of one of the most famous early-renaissance books. From about 1350 to 1800, his "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" was incredibly popular and influential, rivaling the Bible and Euclid's Elements. Then, about 1800, scholars began to question whether "Mandeville wrote Mandeville" -- or indeed whether there ever was such a man. His book is still in print (see Penguin Classic, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville), and is even making something of a comeback,

Mr. Milton is a good writer, and as a travel book his work is quite entertaining. Minimally, it gives us a chance to compare the Middle-East-now with what it was in Mandeville's time. For those who like travel books, that might be enough to make the book worthwhile. Some woodcuts taken from a 1481 edition of Mandeville are real gems. (Penguin should have included these.)

But as serious historical research I have problems with the book. Mr. Milton tries to convince us that Sir John Mandeville really did exist. The historical evidence he presents is weak, at best, and consists chiefly of a barely legible epitaph in St. Albans Abbey. But even here some rigorous scholarship is missing. (What is the earliest mention of this epitaph? To whom is it attributed? Have other scholars noted the inscription, and at what dates? What are their opinions regarding its authenticity?)

My overall impression is that Mr. Milton was not able to gather the evidence he was hoping for, and so had to temporize. I was particularly disappointed that the second edition does not address any of these weaknesses.

A fascinating read! The satisfaction comes not in finally putting to rest the historical debate whether Sir John Mandeville ever made his epic pilgrimmage but rather in going along with Milton as he makes his journey. Settle into your favorite armchair and take off on a most engaging travel narrative. Along the way you will decide for yourself the truth about Sir John's narrative, which is exactly the way all such quests should be pursued.