Milton Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot

'A beautifully clear account of a richly complex life, an account which is also fascinatingly vivid on the political and social background of the time. It's the best narrative I've read of the life of our greatest public poet' Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials A fresh and engaging account of the life of the great English poet and pamphleteer John Milton For centuries John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and many other poetic works, and of radical pamphlets on free speech, divorce and political rights, has emerged from biographies as a woman-hating domestic tyrant or a saintly blind man. But, as Anna Beer shows, his personal life was just as rich and complex as his professional one. By close and groundbreaking analysis of Milton's careful editing of his own life, his wider family's affairs, the records of his government work, and the history of England during one of its most tumultuous periods of social and cultural life, Beer brings both the poet and his period to vivid life. _______________________ 'A splendidly patient and careful biography' Telegraph 'It succeeds magnificently ... perhaps the greatest compliment that one can pay this book is that, having finished it, one is immediately inspired to return to Milton's works' Mail on Sunday