MILTON, JOHN. 1608-1674.


MARTIN, JOHN, illustrator. Paradise Lost. London: Septimus Prowett, 1825-27. 12 parts (2 volumes). Large 4to (378 x 270 mm). Illustrated with 24 mezzotint plates, on thicker paper. Original roan-backed gray-blue wrappers. Custom clamshell box. Occasional mild marginal spotting, light soiling to wrappers, part 1 sympathetically rebacked and with small chip to front wrapper corner, part 2 spine chipped, short tear to part 11 upper wrappers, partially unopened. Provenance: Robert H. & Donna L. Jackson (booklabel), purchased Sothebys New York, November 1st, 1995, lot 155.THE FIRST MARTIN-ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF MILTON'S CLASSIC WORK, IMPERIAL QUARTO ISSUE, RARE IN ORIGINAL PARTS. This is the only parts copy to appear at auction in the last 38 years. Martin's illustrations, which greatly elevated the medium of the mezzotint, were enormously successful. Martin transformed details of early nineteenth-century industrialism, such as gas lamps, coal pits and the new Thames Tunnel, into dizzying visions of hell. According to a contemporary reviewer, "we know of no artist, whose genius so perfectly fitted him to be the illustrator of the mighty Milton ... there is a wildness, a grandeur, and a mystery about his designs which are indescribably fine ... the wonders of that Heaven and Hell which existed before earth was made, are magnificently embodied..." (quoted in Wees). Publication took nearly two years, the parts issued as the mezzotints were completed, the images not necessarily corresponding to the text in the parts. Ray English 69; Wees, Darkness Visible: The Prints of John Martin, pp 18ff.