First edition
First edition, third issue (with Moyles' fourth state of the title page). Includes 1668 additions of "The Argument," "The Verse," and errata to preliminary matter.
The first edition of Paradise Lost is accompanied by one of five title pages, dated 1667, 1668, and 1669, although due to mixing at the printer's, not necessarily issued in the order they were dated. All were from a single setting-up of type (with the exception of gatherings Z and Vv issued with some fifth state 1669 title pages).
A very nice example of one of the original 1,200 books printed in 1669 by the publisher Simmons. Simmons issued this first edition over a period of years, adding one. By the time the 1200 copies of the first run of the text had sold out, seven different variants of the title page had been produced, bearing dates of 1667, 1668, and 1669. The date of the titlepage does not establish when a given copy of the text block itself was printed. However, the bibliographer Hugh Amory has argued that the 1668 title page was probably issued earlier than the one bearing the date 1667.
In the present example the title page bears the full name of the author and the year 1669.
It also includes the important preliminary matter that Milton added during 1668 after the first copies were issued. These include "The Argument," in which Milton describes the program of each of the ten books, and "The Verse," in which Milton defends his use of blank verse rather than rhyme.
Issue Points
- Title page #4. First 1669 title page, before Z and Vv gatherings were reset. Amory's third issue.
- Imprint reads: London: Printed by S. Simmons, are to be sold by T. Helder at the Angel in Little Brittain, 1669. (No comma after Helder or Angel, Little Brittain unhyphenated)
- With "The Printer to the Reader" note in 5-line variant.
- “illustrous” z gathering book 7; line 109
- "farr" line 10.1424, "happie" 10.1533, 10.1497
- 7.190 "diffuse" 7.15 "safetie", 7.49 "tasts", 7.142 "Deitie"
- Zverso (7.39) "Heav'n lie"