Paradise Lost

First published in 1667 and revised into its familiar twelve-book form in 1674, John Milton’s Paradise Lost is one of the great achievements of English epic poetry. Drawing on the biblical account of the Fall, Milton recounts the rebellion of Satan and his fellow angels, the creation of Adam and Eve, and the temptation that brings about humanity’s expulsion from Eden. Yet this is no simple retelling of scripture: through its grand speeches, shifting perspectives and immense imaginative scope, the poem explores ambition, obedience, freedom, pride and the consequences of choosing one’s own will over divine authority.

Written in blank verse of extraordinary power, Paradise Lost draws on classical epic, Renaissance humanism and Milton’s profound engagement with theology and political liberty. Satan’s defiance, in particular, has made the poem an enduring source of debate, with its fallen angel often read as a figure of both heroic resistance and destructive self-deception. Monumental in scale yet intimate in its portrayal of love, vulnerability and loss, Milton’s poem continues to shape how readers imagine the origins of evil and the meaning of human freedom.

From the book

“The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

— John Milton, Paradise Lost

On Paradise Lost

“Paradise Lost is a poem which, in its own right, can be read as a great work of literature.”

— C. S. Lewis