"Paradise Lost: A Poem Written in Ten Books": An Authoritative Text of the 1667 First Edition

Review by REUBEN SANCHEZ, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY. [...]recently, we have had access to the first edition of Paradise Post (1667) via rare books and facsimiles, or via electronic and microfilm versions. The publication of the poem and the accompanying collection of essays, therefore, "represent a 'first' for Milton studies" (vii). Since scholarship is usually based on the 1674 edition (hereafter referred to as "1674"), the editors offer the essays as ways by which to "elucidate major aspects of the first edition of Paradise Pos f (viii) . Not until seven pages into her seventeen-page essay does Knoppers begin to discuss Milton, whose concern is with Adam and Eve laboring in the garden together, which thus becomes "more of a test than a task" (137). Because it can never be complete, laboring in the garden tests the obedience of Adam and Eve. [...]our images of God gleaned from the text are misreadings.