PARADISE LOST. A POEM IN TEN BOOKS.
London: Printed by S. Simmons, and are to be sold by S. Thomson at the Bishops-Head in Duck-Lane, H. Mortlock at the White Hart in Westminster Hall, M. Walker under St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-Street, and R. Boulter at the Turks-Head in Bishopsgate Street, 1688. 1st Edition. Hardcover. First edition, fourth state of title page with four rows of type ornaments following the author's name. With a period after Books and after Milton. Title and text with double-ruled border. Unpaginated; with line numbers printed in margins by tens. With headpieces; initials. Bound by Riviere, with some recent repair to the front hinge, housed in a red, crushed Moroccan slipcase with gilt titles on the spine, inaccurately dated 1669 (instead of 1668). Provenance: From the heirs of John D. Wells (1878 -1932) who, as a young reporter covering the visit of President McKinley to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, composed the only eye-witness account of the assassination attempt of the President that proved fatal. Wells went on to become editor of the Buffalo Courier and then Buffalo Express. According to his great-grandsons, family lore has it that Wells took up the Baconian hobby of finding "codes" in literary works sometime in his later years. Very Good. Item #013879
Price: $50,000.00