The works of John Milton (1608-1674) now join those of Chaucer and Shakespeare in the definitive, one-volume Riverside series, the series of choice among students, teachers, and common readers everywhere. All the splendid early poetry is here, the sonnets and Comus and the incomparable "Lycidas", as well as the important prose, the Puritan pamphlets and "Areopagitica". But pride of place is given to Milton's epics, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and to his final masterpiece, the dramatic poem Samson Agonistes. Of these great works I.A. Richards once wrote: "There is as much understanding of human nature here as even in Shakespeare".

"In the writings of Milton, the work of two tremendous intellectual and social movements came to a head. The Renaissance is responsible for the rich and complex texture of Milton's style, its wealth of ornament and decoration... On the other hand, the Reformation speaks with equal, if not greater, authority in Milton's earnest and individually-minded Christianity. These two contrasting aspects of Milton's life and thought place him among the Christian humanists. His literary art places him, with Homer and Virgil, in the small circle of great epic writers". -- Robert M. Adams