Paradise lost - John Milton (An anauthoritative text, background and sources, criticism) - Edited by Scott Elledge

The text for this Norton Critical Edition of Paradise Lost is a new version of the second of the two editions published under Milton's supervision, that of 1674. The original punctuation has been retained because it indicates Milton's intended phrasing, but the editor has modernized spelling, capitalization, and use of italics because in these respects the original text is distracting to a modern eye. The footnotes supply obsolete meanings for hundreds of Milton's words.

In "Backgrounds and Sources" selections from Milton's Christian Doctrine and from the Bible introduce readers to the origins of the poem's argument, and autobiographical passages from Milton's prose reveal Milton the man and his ideas about poetry. For "Notes on Important Concepts and Topics in Paradise Lost," Professor Elledge has written brief, general summaries of theological and scientific ideas familiar to Milton's original audience and unknown to or only vaguely understood by most modern readers.

The critical essays were chosen for their power to suggest a variety of reasons for admiring and enjoying this poem that has successfully defied all efforts to relegate it to museums of literary history. The critics are Northrop Frye, Stanley Eugene Fish, Albert Cook, Christopher Ricks, J. B. Broadbent, Irene Samuel, William Empson, Frank Kermode, Isabel Gamble MacCaffrey, Voltaire, Jonathan Richardson, Samuel Johnson, and S. T. Coleridge. A bibliography concludes the volume.