This exhaustive literary biography is based on a vast range of documentary evidence. The new edition forms a complete, self-contained and accessible account of Milton's life. It should benefit all students of 17th-century literature and enthusiasts of Milton's poetry. a work of brilliant scholarship - indispensable as much for the answers it provides as for the questions it raises, authoritative in the vast material ordered in its pages, and stimulating in its salutary challenge of accepted theories. Students of Milton and his age will for long argue the merits of Mr Parker's more controversial suggestions, but they could ill afford to bypass him on any aspect of the poet's life.