Milton, John; Martin, John (illus.)
Paradise Lost. Printed for Henry Washbourne, 1853. 4to, full coarse-grain plum leather gilt; 24 mezzotints by John Martin.
Martin's mezzotints were first sold in stages to subscribers. Twenty-four were then selected to accompany the poem, originally in a two-volume edition in 1827. Mezzotints seem especially apt for Milton's work, with their emphasis on the contrast between dark and light. Typical of all artists, in imagining Milton's work, Martin has drawn on his own Romantic sentiments, The poem becomes an embodiment of the sublime. His figures disappear before the grandeur and the terror of the setting. Both Heaven and Hell are greater than those within them, eternal, magnificent and legitimately awe-inspiring.