New York: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. An 1866 first edition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, illustrated by Gustave Doré. This book is featured in San Diego State University’s Special Collections. The book is bound in a brown pebbled leather cover. It is embossed with black ink and embellished with gold foil along the spine and front of the cover. The cover features the image of an angel holding a sword and spear with an embossed black sun with golden rays behind the angel. The title is inlaid with gold foil and curves around the sun. On the back of the book, a symmetrical floral design is embossed into the leather. Inside the cover, there are white and pale green endpapers with a floral design. The edges of the pages are gilded and retain most of the gold. There is mild scuffing on the spine and along the edges of the cover. The pages are made of rag cotton paper and have slight foxing throughout the book. They are bound together with thread and are mostly intact, however the first few pages are loose. The entire book is printed in black in and uses a roman font. The text is also large and easy to read. This edition includes notes and a biography written by Robert Vaughan, D.D. in which he explains the life of John Milton. Scattered throughout the book are large plates that were illustrated by Gustave Doré. Each of them are caption with a quote taken from the text.

Gustave Doré’s Illustrations in Milton’s Paradise Lost

In 1866, the publishing house, Cassell, Petter Galpin & Co. published a new edition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. This book delves into the rebellion of Satan and his journey to seek revenge on God which results in the downfall of Adam and Even and thus humanity. This edition was accompanied by 50 wood carved etchings made by Gustave Doré, an artist famous for his depictions of literary classics such as Dante’s Inferno and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. These etchings are incredibly detailed and are easily recognizable today. Although Doré’s etchings are intricately beautiful, they serve a larger purpose than aesthetics. Doré’s illustrations help aid the reader understand the content of Milton’s work and enhance their reading experience leading to the revitalization of the poem. 

Throughout Milton’s poem, Gustave Doré’s illustrations are included every few pages, ranging from depictions of the fall of Satan to the temptation of Eve and her exile from Eden alongside Adam. In order to make these images, Gustave Doré designed each plate before handing the illustration to a group of woodcarvers who crafted the etchings that were used for printing. In the 1866 edition of Paradise Lost, each plate takes up a full page with a small caption of a corresponding quote from the passage. The large size of both the page and plate allows the reader to fully examine the image and absorb the content completely. Due to Milton’s dense content, Doré’s work offers visual aid. The illustrations break up the long passages and depict specific scenes. Though they are carved into wood, the carvings have high levels of detail, displaying incredible emotion in the characters. There is also high contrast between the deep shadows and bright highlights, which further depicts the juxtaposition of holiness and sin. These excruciatingly sharp details allow the reader to make their own interpretations of Milton’s work. Readers could synthesize what they believed through Milton’s words and Doré’s images. 

Illustrations can greatly impact a reader’s experience, especially for a book that is as heavy and dense as Paradise Lost. The illustrations that are included in the 1866 edition of Paradise Lost is no exception. The article by Sarah Howe, “Illustrating Paradise Lost,” discusses the first edition of Paradise Lost, in which there were no images to accompany it and resulted in mediocre sales in the late seventeenth century. She writes, following the publication, “The poem’s popularity gradually grew, but by 1687, no new edition of Paradise Lost had appeared on the shelves for a decade.” She goes on to explain that in 1688, a publisher named Jacob Tonson published a new edition of Milton’s work which featured artwork from three artists. This new edition became extremely popular and reignited intrigue in Milton’s poem which resulted in Tonson “realis[ing] that pictures sold books and in doing so, set Milton on the path to becoming a national classic.”  Tonson’s publication, “Paradise Lost: Adorn’d with Sculptures,” paved the way for future editions such as the 1866 edition with Gustave Doré’s etchings. Tonson’s realization is crucial in understanding how images can influence a reader. Much like diagrams included in textbooks, the illustrations in Paradise Lost help the reader break down what is happening in the book. The images were meant to convey what Milton wanted and to Doré’s illustrations allowed for readers to view the content in a new light and see what Milton was trying to convey. With nearly 200 years between the first publication of Paradise Lost and Gustave Doré’s illustrated edition, his artwork is crucial to breaking down Milton’s meaning. The intense images are harrowing and unsettling, thus provoking the reader to take a deeper look into the artwork and the messaging behind it. The accessibility of Doré’s artwork and Milton’s words is also aided by the inclusion of footnotes within the book. In the book, some of the pages had small footnotes that explained certain phrases or meanings. This inclusion makes it clear that this edition was meant to be studied and interpreted, making it far more accessible to the common reader. 

In addition to making the content accessible to readers, Gustave Doré’s etchings became an accessible way for people to own art in their homes. During the Victorian era, art was available through purchase if you were wealthy enough to afford it as well as reproductions in cheaply made books and magazines. A book like the 1866 edition of Paradise Lost, allowed for more art distribution since it came with the book. With this book, people were no longer just reading Milton’s poem, but rather immersed themselves through the artwork too. The owner of the book would have been able to own 50 pieces of artwork stored within the large pages, which is an incredible amount in an era where art was difficult to come by if you didn’t have the means to afford it. In this edition of  Paradise Lost, accessibility is a key feature, seen through both the format and the artwork. 

In conclusion, Gustave Doré’s illustrations in this book have also made a large cultural impact on how the world views Paradise Lost. His work has become synonymous with the poem and is easily recognizable. For years, his artwork has drawn people in and immersed readers into the poem with his rich, dramatic compositions. He allowed readers to view Milton’s poem with new eyes and made the heavy text more understandable through his dramatic yet intricately beautiful etchings. Through the size and formatting of the plates within the 1866 edition, Doré’s work made it easier for readers to see the intricate details and allowed them to fully appreciate and admire the artwork. The inclusion of his art in the publication made it so readers were able to own their own pieces of artwork and even influenced the sales of the edition. Within the 1866 edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Gustave Doré’s work is highly influential, admired, and sought after. It has become a crucial part of Paradise Lost’s identity and will continue to lure in readers for years to come. 

Works Cited:

Howe, Sarah. “Illustrating Paradise Lost” Darkness Visible. Christ’s College at Cambridge University. 2008. https://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/illlustration/illustration.html