Type: Exhibition catalog

Name: John Milton and the Cultures of Print: An Exhibition of Books, Manuscripts, and Other Artifacts

Detail: Published by Rutgers University Libraries in conjunction with the exhibition opening.

Type: Exhibition section

Name: XI. Censorship and Milton's Late Work

Detail: CENSORSHIP AND MILTON'S LATE WORK: After the appearance of Paradise Lost in 1667, a frenzy of publication ensued until Milton’s death in 1674. Among the many works Milton published are: The History of Britain, which was started in the late 1640s; a sequel to Paradise Lost (Paradise Regained); to which was bound a biblical drama, Samson Agonistes; his collected poems, and several other pamphlets and books. His published work continued to attract the eye of the censor.

Type: Exhibition caption

Name: Milton, History of Britain, that part especially now call'd England (London, 1670)

Detail: This was Milton's longest published work of prose, and a major (if now neglected) undertaking. He had meant to write a history of England all the way to the present, but could not finish it. Edward Phillips records in his biography that in 1670 Milton "finisht and publisht his History of our Nation till the conquest, all compleat so far as he went, some Passages only excepted, which, being thought too sharp against the Clergy, could not pass the Hand of the Licencer, were in the Hands of the Late Earl of Anglesey while he liv'd; where at present is uncertain." Whether the manuscript of "The Digression," a section cut from the History, was part of those censored passages remains uncertain; it was almost certainly censored (or self-censored) for its content.