.

PARADISE LOST

Edited by

A. W. VERITY, M.A.

Sometime Scholar of Trinity College

Cambridge:

at the University Press

THE

PREFACE

HIS edition of Paradise Lost is based on the smaller editions edited by me for the Pitt Press Series and issued between the years 1892 and 1896. All the editorial matter has been set up afresh and much of it recast; and a considerable amount of fresh material has been added.

I desire to repeat with emphasis the acknowledgment made in my earlier editions of my great indebtedness to previous editors. It is a pious pleasure to make special mention of the immortal labours of Todd and Masson; nor should Newton and Keightley be forgotten. An editor is powerless to estimate what he owes to them (above all, to Masson), and to others who have wrestled with the allusions of a poem that for its full elucidation would exhaust the last resources of scholarship. Some specific items, however, of my own obligations may be recorded here, while many instances are indicated in the course of the volume.

The text is founded . that of Masson's "Globe” edition, but with a simpler system of punctuation, such as I thought might be in rather closer conformity with the original.

Nearly all the biblical and classical references given in this volume have been pointed out by, and taken from, other editors.

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