Paradise Falls Books

Unbelievably inspiring. I challenge you to compare his reading with any one else's or your own in your head. He makes it alive. Not perfect, mind you. You'll find yourself suggesting to him in certain spots that he missed the meaning by putting some emphasis or other on the wrong words. Nevertheless, you know you couldn't do better overall. A real treasure.

Great for a long drive or while driving cross town in Manhattan. You can debate the issues of suffering with Milton in your head.

Sure do wish it were the whole work.

Contains extensive information in the introduction that is lends an understanding to anyone reading any of Milton's work. This particular version is very inexpensive, and contains everything one would need to understand PL. Excellent!

My review is of the library binding edition released by Buccaneer Books. It is a very plain and small volume which is wonderfully bound. It contains nothing but the poem itself (including the prose arguments) with the original spelling and punctuation. That means no notes, commentary, or introduction, so if you're looking for lots of in-text help, this isn't what you want. The Fowler, Hughes, or Norton editions are all laden with helpful material like that. But if you just want to experience Milton's masterpiece alone, this is a lovely edition. I found that the book could be purchased much more cheaply if I ordered directly from the publisher's website.

Milton in Paradise Lost unfurls a morning star banner heralding the cosmic story of the fall of angels and men in language eminently civil. I am sure that Homer and Dante were Milton's schoolmasters yet Milton almost exceeds them in the slendid language and poetry of this epic creation. Philip Pullman said "No one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words". This is a poem of majesty and sublime lyricism as in Milton's description of Mulciber falling:
"from Morn
To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,
A Summer's day; and with the setting Sun
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star".
Each book of Paradise Lost is introduced with an argument, or summary. These arguments were written by Milton and added because early readers had requested a guide to the poem. Milton's purpose in this masterpiece is to tell about the fall of man and justify God's ways to man. When the angels battle in heaven at one point they pull up mountains and hills and throw them at each other: "So Hills amid the Air encounterd Hills Hurl'd to and fro with jaculation dire, That under ground, they fought in dismal
shade." After their coup attempt in heaven Satan and the other rebel angels are lying stunned on a lake of fire. Satan rises from the lake and makes his way to the shore. He calls the other angels to do the same, and they assemble by and above the lake. Satan tells them that all is not lost and tries to cheer his followers. Led by Mammon and Mulciber, the fallen angels build their capital and palace Pandemonium. They decide to get at God through his new creation and Satan sets off on this mission. In reading Paradise Lost the poem reads the reader while being read. What I mean is that Milton lets his readers go awry in their affections and he corrects and instructs those misreadings as well as anticipates them. In this way the poem becomes a live text with meaning apprehended through the interplay between the peruser of the poem and the text itself. Milton allows the reader to subjectively question the justice of the current religious paradigm and then leads them back to the perspicacity of deity. Ultimately Paradise Lost is Milton's paean to a vast pattern in the universe, the disruption of that pattern by rebels, and the weaving of those rebellion threads back into an ever more beautiful tapestry.

This recording is beautifully done and makes a great companion to the written text. It's great if you are doing a study on the text, or just want to listen to the poetry.

I tend to be a very fast reader, and unfortunately that doesn't work well with poetry. A few years back I read the "Divine Comedy" and couldn't help racing through it. I missed a lot of the beauty of the work because of my reading habits. I have been listening to several audio books on my daily commute and saw that this work was available and decided to give it a try. I felt that listening to poetry in a spoken format would allow me to enjoy the beauty of it more since I believe most poetry was originally designed for oral transmission.

I found that listening to "Paradise Lost" did meet my expectations. I had to concentrate, but the effort was well worth it. I couldn't race through it and enjoyed it as intended. Anton Lesser did an excellent job as usual as the reader. His voice seemed appropriate for this type of work; though I agree with another reviewer that a more powerful voice may have been appropriate for the voice of God.

I really enjoyed Milton's vision of the creation and fall. The epic descriptions of the heavens and Satan and the other characters were vivid and I could see why this is considered such a great work. From a theological perspective, it was interesting to see his view of the origin of the angels, the Son, and Satan. He did a very good job of taking cryptic verses from the Bible and other sources and expanding them out into a powerful story.

I highly recommend this audio book and feel that this is a very good way to be introduced to Milton.

A person considering buying a recording of Paradise Lost might have two questions. First, Am I going to be able to follow the poem without notes and guidance? Second, should I buy the complete version or the abridged one?

Paradise Lost is a notoriously difficult text, full of learned references to mythology, history, and geography; the language is dense, the syntax twisted, the sense frequently obscure; and the poem is just plain long. Perhaps surprisingly, Anton Lesser's reading makes it possible to ride over all these difficulties; his intelligent and varied readings make the sense clear even when the language isn't. One hears the infinite variety of the poem, the delicate and touching parts as well as the stirring and sublime, the innocence of Paradise and the magnificent evil of Satan. I've read Paradise Lost perhaps half a dozen times over the years, always with notes; this is the first time I was sorry to reach the end of it.

But what about the abridged version? I don't recommend it; Milton builds up his climaxes on a vast scale, and a "great moments from Milton" approach weakens their effect. Also, on the abridged version, Eve is read by an actress. This seems to me a mistake; Paradise Lost is full of voices -- Satan and all the demonic throng, the allegorical figures of Sin and Death (Sin is also a woman), God, the Messiah, the angelic host, Adam and Eve -- and to single out one of the voices is to falsely highlight and distort. (Plus, the part is read with an odd accent, almost Irish; what is that about?) It must be granted that all of Lesser's skill can't make God Himself more than a cold and distant abstraction. But that is what Milton wrote, and probably what he intended.

So, my recommendation is to spend the extra and get the complete set. It's something you wouldn't want to miss!

If possible, I would have given this recording 4.5 stars. Lesser's reading is in many ways masterful; as an experienced Shakespearian actor, he has absolute command of blank verse and makes Milton's often convoluted syntax sound almost like natural speech. Throughout the poem, he reads in a slow-paced, majestic manner that adds appropriate gravitas to Milton's Biblical subject, especially with lines spoken by God and Satan that could easily become unintentionally humorous in the hands of a less skilful narrator. Unfortunately, Lesser never really varies from this style in parts of the text where he probably should - unlike other Naxos unabridged audiobooks, all the characters are read in almost exactly the same way, a potential source of confusion in scenes where there are multiple speakers. Lesser also doesn't pick up the tempo much for the more dramatic, suspenseful sequences where his ponderous tone is less appropriate. This is by far the best recording of Paradise Lost currently available, but I would personally have preferred a more "dramatic" reading that brought out Milton's plot and characterisation to a greater extent.

Mark Twain remarked that "a classic" is a book that people praise, but don't read.

Prior to listening to this unabridged audio version, I was only dimly aware of PARADISE LOST. I knew it was an epic poem about Satan's fall from grace, and knew that it was quoted in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed." ("It is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.")

British thespian Anton Lesser brings the saga dramatically to life. It is a delight to hear a great actor speak great verse and tell an epic tale.

You still have to pay close attention to the proceedings. Multitasking throughout will leave you baffled and doing much rewinding. This is not for those with short attention spans. Focus is required, but you will be rewarded.

For those who revel in marvelous spoken word performances, this is highly recommended.

Paradise Lost is my favorite work in the English language, and this is my favorite edition of it (I have quite a few). The editor, Roy Flannagan, does a superb job with the footnotes. They address just about every question a modern reader might have, provide plenty of historical context and explain in detail the zillions of references and names that someone who is not intimately familiar with all of Milton's sources (among them the Bible and ancient Greek and Roman mythology) will have a hard time understanding. Flannagan's infectious enthusiasm for this poem comes across loud and clear, and he never condescends to readers that lack a PhD, like Merritt Hughes does in his scholarly edition of Paradise Lost. Finally, the page layout of the Flannagan edition makes reading and note taking real easy. In sum, this is hands down the best edition of Paradise Lost.

Very hard to read if you are non English speaking man. But it is very interesting to read the classical masterpiece of 17-th century. So if you really interested in such things, don't think simply get it.

"'From almost the moment of its publication in 1667, Paradise Lost was considered a classic. It is difficult now to appreciate both how audacious an undertaking it represents, and how astonishing its immediate and continued success was. Over the course of twelve books Milton wrote an epic poem that would ''justify the ways of God to men,'' a mission that required a complex drama whose source is both historical and deeply personal. The struggle for ascendancy between God and Satan is played out across hell, heaven, and earth but the consequences of the Fall are all too humanly tragic--pride, ambition, and aspiration the motivating forces.' In this new edition derived from their Oxford Authors text, Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg discuss the complexity of Milton's poem in a new introduction, and on-page notes explain its language and allusions."

A heafty volume for a thrifty price. Good binding, clean & easy to read font and enough room in the margins for notes if you are a student. A great side item if you get the Dore' engravings of Paradise Lost [which are just quotes from the book and not the whole poem] and want to read more than just the famous lines.

Unabriged and yet small enough to get away with lugging around.

Had problems with the original ? this version reads like a 'normal' book and makes reading the original a possibility.

I was very interested in reading Paradise Lost but the language of the original version is simply too complex. I couldn't find a good abridged version so I found this. It is one of my favorite books.

The Good
It allows people to read Paradise Lost without having to have a 17th century translator. It is dramatic, tragic, and even has a little action.

The Bad
It is not written in modern English. It is in a semi-Shakespearian prose that can be hard to get through at times. If classics aren't exactly your thing then don't read this. Its also pretty hard to get a hold of.

This book is a gem. Asimov examines the poem from nearly every angle, including the historic, scientific, and especially the Biblical.

This book turned everything around when it seemed that Milton's poetic reputation was unsalvagable. Ricks can see more in a line of verse than any other critic, and he writes like an angel. Simply the best work of criticism ever written about this great poet.

This is a wonderful book. This is a great book. This book is spectacular

This is an epic novel about a small Ohio town in the years after the Civil War. It might remind you of Gone With the Wind, Aztec, King's Row, The Thorn Birds -- other great novels about change and adjustment, with well defined characters and places that come alive.

Sadly, the book is out of print. I'll quote from the dust jacket so you can decide if this might be something you'd like.

"Paradise Falls is an epic chronicle of America -- as overwhelming and teeming with vitality as the nation itself. Written in the tradition of Raintree County, this giant of a novel encompasses 35 years in the life of the small Ohio town of Paradise Falls, from the end of the Civil War to the tumultuous opening of the 20th century.

In this novel, Don Robertson recreates an entire era of American history, an era that saw the stormy end of the profiteer-robber baron and the emergency of the US as an industrial goliath. But it is first and foremost a human and engrossing story for every palate, overflowing with dramatic scenes and memorable characters."

Find this book. Buy it from an Amazon seller or get it from your library, but find this book.

Major Milton Reference Released.
Paradise Lost, 1668-1968: Three Centuries of Commentary edited by Earl Roy Miner, co-edited by William Moeck, Steven Edward Jablonski (Bucknell University Press, Associated University Presses) This creative resource compiles and checks the best of previous commentarial scholarship on Paradise Lost. Over 15 years in the making, this volume should become the preferred companion for a close reading of the poem.
This Commentary, the first book-length work of this kind on Paradise Lost since the Richardsons' in 1734, combines resources in lieu of a true variorum edition no longer possible. It includes the best commentary from "Annotations" like Patrick Hume's (1695), the first full-length commentary on any English author, as well as annotations to the variorum editions of Newton (1749) and Todd (1801-42) and the modern professional editions culminating in Alastair Fowler's (1968).
Other elements combined in this Commentary include an essay on the pre-annotative criticism from 1668, including that by Marvell, Dryden, and Dennis; copious use of the OED; numerous cross-references to Milton's other works and passages in Paradise Lost; fourteen excurses and other contributions by the present editors.
This Commentary uniquely presents biblical, classical, and vernacular citations in which every cited passage is quoted, and every quotation is in English. It is itself a research library for Paradise Lost, and only a text of the poem is required.
The Editor, Earl Miner, was Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. A scholar of inestimable breadth and quality, he distinguished himself in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies, in poetics, translation, and the Classical traditions in English literature, as well as in Japanese literature and comparative literature. After devoting fifteen years to this Commentary, he was preparing a study of inter-cultural poetics at his death in April 2004.

The Co-Editor, William Moeck, holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York and teaches at Nassau Community College. After a dissertation on Milton and Spenser and this Commentary, he is proceeding to an interdisciplinary study of the relation between allegory and irony.

The Corresponding Editor, Steven Jablonski, received his Ph.D. from Princeton University. His essays on Milton have appeared in SEL,
Spokesperson Milton, and Arenas of Conflict. He is currently a librarian at the Skokie Public Library.