John Milton Books

Peter Levi is an English poet, and for the most part he writes lively if occasionally sloppy prose. It's hard to tell who this biography of John Milton, the great Puritan poet, has been written for, however. Scholars will shun it for its total lack of documentation and its spotty detail. Average readers, wanting to know more about Milton and his times, will find it both condescending at times and frustratingly abstruse at others. Levi's greatest strength are his openly judgmental evaluations of the poems; perhaps he should have published those judgments on their own as a brief "appreciation" of Milton.

The publishers intend to print large type editions for those who want/need them. This is admirable, but the execution is sloppy.

For example, line 57 of Lycidas in their large print edition reads:
"RHad ye been there, S...for what could that have done?"

The text (Viking Press edition) is actually:
"Had ye been there!- for what could that have done?"

The nonsensical extra capital letters, the omission of the exclamation point, and the insertion of an ellipsis all either change the sense of the text and/or are distracting and annoying or both.

The blurb on the back of the book is very funny(unintentionally, I'm guessing):
"It is a spectacular collection of poems and songs in which Milton's particular dramatic and natural chic is evident."
Milton? chic??

This book advertises itself as an against the grain, theoretically sophisticated, radical re-reading of Milton. It talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. Some of the contributors (Kendrick)cannot write a grammatical sentence.

This is a painfully impotent adaptation of Milton's monumental work. The children's storybook style cannot support the profundity of the subject matter. Sex and violence are sanitized and passions softened, while "minutes tick and seconds tock" and the results are sometimes ludicrous. Some compositions simply do not lend themselves to watering down and should be left to the age group for which they were intended. The kids can wait.

Due to a publishing re-shuffle, "Guardians of the Lost Library" etc. are not in this issue. Gemestone says that they will appear in issue #383. And 379 and 383 will have different covers than are shown at Amazon.

This is an excellent rendition of the previous century. It contains adequate description and full-color presentations
of key events which shaped the time period. Cubism is depicted,
as well as the Heisenberg Principle, Darwin/Mandel and
President Theodore Roosevelt. The work would be perfect for
any class project.

This is a very good overview of what events occured over the last 100 years. It is concise and has a good selection of illustrations. Great coffee table book.

I recently checked out from the library the 1995 version of this book, entitled "Our Times: The Illustrated History of the 20th Century." It is well-written, superbly organized, and intellectually seductive. Anyone interested in knowing more about history of the 20th century will find between these covers some of the most telling, vivid, interesting, and glorious details about the people and events and "causes and effects" in 20th century history that heretofore has existed in our heads only at the "label level." (For example, in 1918, when the German ace fighter pilot "Red Baron"--Baron Manfred von Richthofen--was shot down, credited with 80 Allied "kills," the Allies buried him with full military honors.)

"Extended quotations" from various historical figures during the 20th century, laid out on two-column full sized eight and a half by eleven inch sized pages throughout the book, and richly illustrated, thoughtfully offer "voices" from the past. (For example, within the larger excerpt of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s August 28, 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., we find that he said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.")

This book does an excellent job of cross-referencing topics, both to the past and future events, enabling us to see history as an unfolding process, not a series of unexplained, random, and isolated events. If you enjoy history, you will enjoy thumbing through this book--time after time. A really enthusiastic thumbs up to the creators of this book.

I want my own copy for Christmas 2000, please Santa!