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Early Modern · 1667; twelve-book edition 1674
Paradise Lost
John Milton · 1608–1674
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What it is
The revolt of the angels, the creation, and the fall, written to justify the ways of God to men — and giving Satan the best speeches in the process.
Why it lasted
The greatest epic in English, dictated blind by a defeated republican, and an argument about freedom and obedience that readers have never agreed how to read.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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