ABSTRACT
The most complete and scholarly modern biography, though not all its views have been generally accepted, is by W. R. PARKER (2 vols, Oxford U.P., 1968). A shorter life that is still well-worth reading is John Milton, Englishman, by J. H. HANFORD (Gollancz, 1950). There are several more recent brief lives. CHRISTOPHER HILL, Milton and the English Revolution (Faber & Faber, 1977, paperback), and A. L. ROWSE, Milton the Puritan (Macmillan, 1977), start from diametrically opposed attitudes towards Milton’s political and religious views, while A. N. WILSON, in The Life of John Milton (Oxford U.P. and paperback, 1983), is more interested in Milton the humanist (who was also, he maintains, an elitist, conservative snob). All three of these books are highly readable and frankly personal works; it might be more useful to compare two of them than to read only one. It might be still more useful to read the writings by Milton and his contemporaries on which all these interpretations, ultimately, are based. Milton’s Selected Prose (ed. C. A. PATRIDES, Penguin, 1974) includes the major autobiographical prose writings as well as two of the most important early biographies based on the views of men who knew Milton personally.
