Paradise Lost

Credits and rights

Original writer

John Milton

Publisher of this edition

BoingyBooks Classics

Original publisher

Project Gutenberg

Adaptation credits

John Shoufler / BoingyBooks Classics — digital edition

Original source / edition

Paradise Lost (1667)

License

Public Domain

License link

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Rights and adaptation notice

This work is in the public domain. John Shoufler published this digital edition through BoingyBooks Classics. The original work remains public domain and may be copied, adapted, and shared.

Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667)

"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Satan's rebellion against God, the Fall of Man, and the expulsion from Eden — told in the most majestic English verse ever written. Milton's blind dictation of this epic is one of literature's great feats.

Historical Significance:
John Milton, blind and politically disgraced after the Restoration of Charles II, dictated Paradise Lost to his daughters between 1658 and 1663. Published in 1667, it is the last great epic poem in the English language. Milton's Satan — charismatic, eloquent, defiant — is literature's most complex villain and arguably its most compelling character. William Blake said Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it." The poem's influence on English literature is second only to Shakespeare — it shaped the language, the narrative of the Fall, and the very concept of literary ambition.

This public domain classic was originally published in 1667. Free to read and share.