Designed for students new to Milton's work, this sourcebook outlines the seventeenth-century contexts of its composition and examines a range of the key critical responses from across literary history. The guide also usefully reprints frequently studied passages of the poem, suggests further reading, and provides cross-references between the textual, contextual and critical material.

Margaret Kean is the Dame Helen Gardner Fellow in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She has published a number of articles on Milton's poetry.

Introduction 1: Contexts, Contextual Overview, Chronology, Contemporary Documents; From John Milton, Manuscript of Milton's Minor Poems (Facsimile, 1899); From John Milton, Of Education, To Master Samuel Hartlib (1644); From John Milton, Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, To the Parlament of England (1644); From John Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649); From the speech made by King Charles I at his execution (1649); From John Milton, The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, 2nd edition (1660); From Edmund Waller, 'To The King, Upon His Majesty's Happy Return' (1664); From John Milton [?], De Doctrina Christiana (pub. 1825); John Milton, 'The Verse', Paradise Lost (1674); From John Dryden, Virgil's Æneis (1697); From Helen Darbishire, The Early Lives of Milton (1932); From The Life of Mr John Milton by John Phillips [actual author, Cyriack Skinner]; From The Life of Mr John Milton by Edward Phillips (1694); 2: Interpretations, Critical History, Early Critical Reception 3: Key Passages, Introduction, Book-by-book Breakdown of Paradise Lost (1674), Internal Chronology of Paradise Lost 4: Further Reading, Recommended Modern Editions of Paradise Lost, Biographies, Collections of Critical Essays, Recommended Studies of Paradise Lost, Glossary, Index