John Milton

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Standard Name: Milton, John
Head-and-shoulders engraving of John Milton, 1670 or later. He wears bands at his neck, and shoulder-length hair.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Birth Anne Grant
As a girl she wished for a little sister whom she could teach to enjoy Milton .
Grant, Anne. Memoirs of an American Lady. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1808, 2 vols.
2: 153
Cultural formation Ephelia
If this was Ephelia, she grew up in an extremely wealthy, noble family and an incomparably privileged environment, with King James I her honorary grandfather as well as her godfather, and with fine literature produced...
Cultural formation Frances Arabella Rowden
FAR came from the English middle class. She was an Anglican in religion. Mary Russell Mitford represents her as a young teacher taking a relaxed attitude to religious ideas in literary contexts (her students were...
Cultural formation Lucy Hutton
She was born into the English professional class: its upper ranks, if the motto on her published title-page is a family one. As befitting her marriage to a clergyman, she was a strong member of...
Dedications Hannah Cowley
One early performance drew bigger crowds than Drury Lane, although the rival theatre that night featured Sarah Siddons on stage and the king and queen in the audience. More Ways Than One was published on...
Education Christian Milne
So keen was the child on her school-learned skills that she kept a piece of broken slate
qtd. in
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Letters from the North Highlands, During the Summer 1816. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817.
58
in her pocket for writing whenever she could manage it. She liked to copy out poetry, but...
Education L. M. Montgomery
LMM saved enough money to attend Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. for one year, 1895-1896, where her studies included Milton and Carlyle . She wrote for the school newspaper and joined a literary...
Education Frances Ridley Havergal
FRH was an avid reader within limits: her selection of material was mostly dictated by her religious interests. After receiving a copy of a book about literary women she commented, The sad sketch of L. E. L.
Education Mary Gawthorpe
Apprenticeship included some part-time attendance at the Pupil-Teacher Centre in the LeedsSchool Board offices. There MG continued with largely the same subjects as at school, with the addition of French, educational theory, psychology, and...
Education Lydia Maria Child
At fifteen she read Paradise Lost (with her brother's encouragement) and was delighted with its grandeur and sublimity, but was bold enough to criticise Milton for assert[ing] the superiority of his own sex in rather...
Education Jane Johnson
She was without formal education.
Whyman, Susan E. The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800. Oxford University Press, 2009.
162
She told a cousin that her favourite reading had been the Bible ever since she was a girl.
Arizpe, Evelyn et al. Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts. Pied Piper Publishing, 2006.
31
Historian Susan E. Whyman argues that it was through epistolary...
Education Anne Brontë
Their later reading drew on a selection of standard texts including Oliver Goldsmith 's History of England, Hannah More 's Moral Sketches, John Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress, Isaac Watts 's Doctrine of...
Education Frances Power Cobbe
In 1841 FPC began to educate herself. She studied history, read much of the classics (including all of Milton 's poetry), and worked at astronomy and architecture.
Cobbe, Frances Power. Life of Frances Power Cobbe. Houghton, Mifflin, 1894, 2 vols.
1: 61-3
Education Helen Waddell
She attended the Victoria School for Girls in Belfast from 1900, then took a year of private study from 1907 to 1908 before going on to read English (with Latin and French) at Queen's University, Belfast
Education Joanna Baillie
From the age of ten she went to a boarding school in Glasgow which specialised in transforming healthy little hoydens into perfect little ladies.
qtd. in
Witchcraft by Joanna Baillie. Finborough Theatre, 2008.
Here she found that she loved maths as well as art...

Timeline

8 November 1623: Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies,...

Writing climate item

8 November 1623

Shakespeare 's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, collected (with one or two omissions) and posthumously published this year in a handsome large-format edition (the First Folio) were registered with the Stationers' Company .
Dobson, Michael. “Whatever you do, buy”. London Review of Books, 15 Nov. 2001, pp. 8-10.
8-9
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era. William Morrow, 1992.
12
Lea, Richard. “Shakespeare’s First Folio fetches ¥2.8m”. Guardian Unlimited, 13 July 2006.
Smith, Emma. Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book. Oxford University Press, 2016.
2-3, 16, 56

Christmas Day 1629: John Milton finished his ode On the morning...

Writing climate item

Christmas Day 1629

John Milton finished his ode On the morning of Christ's Nativity. It was his first religious poem in English.
Campbell, Gordon, and John Milton. “Introduction and Notes”. The Complete Poems, edited by Bernard Arker Wright and Bernard Arker Wright, New Edition, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1980, p. xv - xxix, passim.
xi
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

29 September 1634: Milton's masque later known as Comus was...

Writing climate item

29 September 1634

Milton 's masque later known as Comus was performed at Ludlow Castle with music by Henry Lawes , to mark the installation of Lord Bridgewater as Lord President of Wales.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Milton

Late 1638: Milton's pastoral elegy Lycidas appeared...

Writing climate item

Late 1638

Milton 's pastoral elegy Lycidas appeared in a volume of Cambridge poems published in memory of Edward King , who had died by drowning.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Milton

By 31 May 1641: Milton entered (anonymously) the ideological...

National or international item

By 31 May 1641

Milton entered (anonymously) the ideological battle surrounding episcopacy (government of the Church of England by bishops) with the first of his five anti-prelatical pamphlets, Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in England.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Milton

1 August 1643: Milton published The Doctrine and Discipline...

Building item

1 August 1643

Milton published The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, a pamphlet arguing that divorce ought to be easier (for a husband).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Milton

23 November 1644: John Milton published Areopagitica, which...

Writing climate item

23 November 1644

John Milton published Areopagitica, which has become one of his most famous prose tracts because of its subject-matter: a condemnation of censorship, or (stretching its original position slightly) even a defence of freedom of...

2 January 1646: According to collector George Thomason, this...

Writing climate item

2 January 1646

According to collector George Thomason , this was the publication date of Poems of Mr. John Milton , both English and Latin. Compos'd at several times, which was dated 1645. It included the paired...

13 February 1649: Following the king's execution, Milton published...

Writing climate item

13 February 1649

Following the king 's execution, Milton published The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, a pamphlet designed to enforce the general point that a tyrant may be lawfully got rid of.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.
The pamphlet collector George Thomason

3 March 1660: Milton published The Readie and Easie Way...

Writing climate item

3 March 1660

Milton published The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, a pamphlet designed to sway public opinion against the restoration either of the monarchy or of rule by any single individual.
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.
The...

October 1667: John Milton published his epic poem Paradise...

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October 1667

John Milton published his epic poem Paradise Lost, which he had begun dictating before the Restoration and entered in the Stationers' Register in August.
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
20 August 2009

May 1671: John Milton published, together, Paradise...

Writing climate item

May 1671

John Milton published, together, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes: a small-scale religious epic and a blank-verse tragedy.
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.
Johnson, Samuel. The Lives of the Poets. Editor Lonsdale, Roger, Clarendon Press, 2006, 4 vols.
1: 400n144

November 1681: John Dryden published his political satire...

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November 1681

John Dryden published his political satire Absalom and Achitophel, at Charles II 's personal suggestion, just a week before the first Earl of Shaftesbury 's trial for treason.
Sherburn, George, and Donald F. Bond. The Restoration and Eighteenth Century. 2nd ed., Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.
725-6

By late 1697: John Dryden published by subscription his...

Writing climate item

By late 1697

John Dryden published by subscription his verse translation of Virgil 's Works; it was the first time a literary work by a living author had been published by this means.
Watson, George, and Ian Roy Wilson, editors. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1969, 5 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N Flr 1 Ref.

20 May 1707: Jacob Tonson the elder signed the first of...

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20 May 1707

Jacob Tonson the elder signed the first of two copyright agreements giving him sole right in Shakespeare 's plays.
Nichol, Donald W. “Warburton (Not!) on copyright: Clearing up the Misattribution of An Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Literary Property”. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
19
, No. 2, 1996, pp. 171-82.
172
Bernard, Stephen. Whig Literary Culture and the Canon: the Legacy of the Tonsons. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Texts

Milton, John. Areopagitica. 1644.
Campbell, Gordon, and John Milton. “Introduction and Notes”. The Complete Poems, edited by Bernard Arker Wright and Bernard Arker Wright, New Edition, J. M. Dent and Sons, 1980, p. xv - xxix, passim.
Milton, John. Lament for Damon. Translator Waddell, Helen, Privately printed, 1943.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Peter Parker, Robert Boulter, and Matthias Walker, 1667.
Milton, John. “Paradise Lost (1667)”. University of Virginia Library: Electronic Text Center, Scolar Press.
Milton, John. Paradise Regain’d. John Starkey, 1671.
Milton, John. Poems. Editor Wright, Bernard Arker, J. M. Dent; E. P. Dutton, 1959.
Milton, John. Poems of Mr. John Milton. Humphrey Moseley, 1645.
Milton, John. The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Printed by T. P. and M. S., 1643.