Paradise Regained (LargePrint Paperback)

John Milton was born in the Cheapside district of London in a house called "The Spreadeagle" that would later be destroyed in the Great Fire of London. His father was a real-estate agent and liturgical composer. Milton was educated at St. Paul's and Christ's College, Cambridge. After the age of twelve, young Milton, an avid student, "rarely retired to bed from my studies until midnight." He received his master's degree in 1632. Milton continued to study independently at his father's house for several years after he was graduated from Cambridge. He toured France and Italy from 1638 to 1639, returning by way of Geneva. He probably visited Galileo, then under house arrest by the Inquisition in Florence. Milton returned to England on hearing news of the outbreak of the Civil War. He worked for the republican, anti-royalist cause for several years. He became embroiled in many political controversies, however, including the question of "divorce at pleasure" on the grounds of incompatibility, of which he became a passionate advocate after his wife, Mary Powell, fled home to her parents after six weeks of marriage. She returned to him years later, and they had three daughters before she died, in 1652. His second wife died in childbirth, and he married for the third time late in life, in 1663. His defense of the execution of Charles I (at which Milton was present) earned him a post in Cromwell's government. The Stuart Restoration ended Milton's political career, but allowed him the time to return to the composition of poetry. His early poetry, beginning in the late 1620s, was often written in Latin and Greek. In his later years, however, Milton wrote only in English. His eyesight, which had been declining for a long time, failed completely due to glaucoma in 1652; he composed "Paradise Lost" in his head every night, and dictated it to a secretary the next morning. Its publication in 1667 secured a place for him in the pantheon of literature. He continued writing until his death in 1674 from the complications of gout, and in that year, a revised edition of "Paradise Lost" was published.