Milton finds that almost everything frightens him. Could a chance meeting with a mysterious new friend change the way Milton sees the world, and himself? An inspiring story about rediscovering your courage. Download the full eBook and explore supporting teaching materials at www.twinkl.com/originals Join Twinkl Book Club to receive printed story books every half-term at www.twinkl.co.uk/book-club (UK only).

William Poole recounts Milton's life as England’s self-elected national poet and explains how the greatest poem of the English language came to be written. How did a blind man compose this staggeringly complex, intensely visual work? Poole explores how Milton’s life and preoccupations inform the poem itself—its structure, content, and meaning.

A groundbreaking biography of Milton’s formative years that provides a new account of the poet’s political radicalization John Milton (1608–1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defences of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions. Tracing Milton’s literary, intellectual, and political development with unprecedented depth and understanding, Poet of Revolution is an unmatched biographical account of the formation of the mind that would go on to create Paradise Lost—but would first justify the killing of a king. Biographers of Milton have always struggled to explain how the young poet became a notorious defender of regicide and other radical ideas such as freedom of the press, religious toleration, and republicanism. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography of Milton’s formative years, Nicholas McDowell draws on recent archival discoveries to reconcile at last the poet and polemicist. He charts Milton’s development from his earliest days as a London schoolboy, through his university life and travels in Italy, to his emergence as a public writer during the English Civil War. At the same time, McDowell presents fresh, richly contextual readings of Milton’s best-known works from this period, including the “Nativity Ode,” “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” Comus, and “Lycidas.” Challenging biographers who claim that Milton was always a secret radical, Poet of Revolution shows how the events that provoked civil war in England combined with Milton’s astonishing programme of self-education to instil the beliefs that would shape not only his political prose but also his later epic masterpiece.

Stanley Fish's Surprised by Sin, first published in 1967, set a new standard for Milton criticism and established its author as one of the world's preeminent Milton scholars. The lifelong engagement begun in that work culminates in this book, the magnum opus of a formidable critic and the definitive statement on Milton for our time. How Milton works "from the inside out" is the foremost concern of Fish's book, which explores the radical effect of Milton's theological convictions on his poetry and prose. For Milton the value of a poem or of any other production derives from the inner worth of its author and not from any external measure of excellence or heroism. Milton's aesthetic, says Fish, is an "aesthetic of testimony": every action, whether verbal or physical, is or should be the action of holding fast to a single saving commitment against the allure of plot, narrative, representation, signs, drama--anything that might be construed as an illegitimate supplement to divine truth. Much of the energy of Milton's writing, according to Fish, comes from the effort to maintain his faith against these temptations, temptations which in any other aesthetic would be seen as the very essence of poetic value. Encountering the great poet on his own terms, engaging his equally distinguished admirers and detractors, this book moves a 300-year debate about the significance of Milton's verse to a new level.

'Making Darkness Light is an illumination' Adam Phillips 'His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs' Spectator For most of us John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon of English literature, a grim puritan, sightlessly dictating his great work to an amanuensis, removed from the real world in his contemplation of higher things. But dig a little deeper and you find an extraordinary and complicated human being. Revolutionary and apologist for regicide, writer of propaganda for Cromwell's regime, defender of the English people and passionate European, scholar and lover of music and the arts - Milton was all of these things and more. Making Darkness Light shows how these complexities and contradictions played out in Milton's fascination with oppositions - Heaven and Hell, light and dark, self and other - most famously in his epic poem Paradise Lost. It explores the way such brutal contrasts define us and obscure who we really are, as the author grapples with his own sense of identity and complex relationship with Milton. Retracing Milton's footsteps through seventeenth century London, Tuscany and the Marches, he vividly brings Milton's world to life and takes a fresh look at his key works and ideas around the nature of creativity, time and freedom of expression. He also illustrates the profound influence of Milton's work on writers from William Blake to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges. This is a book about Milton, that also speaks to why we read and what happens when we choose over time to let another's life and words enter our own. It will change the way you think about Milton forever.

Born in New York in 1909, Milton Rogovin has been photographing coal miners since 1962. Men and women portrayed at a mine entrance, covered in coal dust, are barely recognizable in the accompanying photographs, where they stand in their own homes. This text presents more than 100 of these powerful images.

A collection of essays exploring John Milton's rise to popularity and his status as a canonical author. The volume considers Milton's 'authorial persona' in the context of his relationships with his contemporary writers, stationers, and readers.

The first in a high-octane thriller series that is perfect for fans of Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne.

What happened to the radicals when the English Revolution failed? The Restoration, which re-established Charles II as king of England in 1660, marked the end of “God’s cause”—a struggle for liberty and republican freedom. While most accounts of this period concentrate on the court, Christopher Hill focuses on those who mourned the passing of the most radical era in English history. The radical protestant clergy, as well as republican intellectuals and writers generally, had to explain why providence had forsaken the agents of God’s work. In The Experience of Defeat, Christopher Hill explores the writings and lives of the Levellers, the Ranters and the Diggers, as well as the work of George Fox and other important early Quakers. Some of them were pursued by the new regime, forced into hiding or exile; others compelled to recant. In particular Hill examines John Milton’s late work, arguing that it came directly out of a painful reassessment of man and society that impelled him to “justify the ways of God to Man.”

In Looking Beyond Race, Otis Milton Smith recounts his life as an African American who overcame poverty and prejudice to become a successful politician, and eventual president of General Motors. In Looking Beyond Race, Otis Milton Smith (1922-94) recounts his life as an African American who overcame poverty and prejudice to become a successful politician, going on to become the first black vice president and general counsel of General Motors. Born in the slums of Memphis, Tennessee, Smith was the illegitimate son of a black domestic worker and her prominent white employer. Although he identified with his mother's blackness, he inherited his father's white complexion. This left him open to racism from whites, who resented his African American heritage, and blacks, who resented his skin color. Throughout his life, Smith worked with and met many prominent Americans. He knew boxer Joe Louis, future general Daniel "Chappie" James, future Detroit mayor Coleman Young, and the nation's first African American general, B. O. Davis Jr. Through politics he knew Michigan's prominent politicians and was appointed by Governor John Swainson to the Michigan Supreme Court, making him the first black man since Reconstruction to sit on any supreme court in the nation. Smith also knew nationally known figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Estes Kevfauver, and presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Through his civil rights work, he met A. P. Tureaud, Roy Wilkins, and Benjamin Hooks, and he worked closely with Vernon Jordan. Looking Beyond Race provides a rare glimpse into the inner workings of America's largest corporation. Smith was an early advocate of the increased cooperation between business and government that was so necessary for business negotiating the complexities of a global economy. In 1983 he retired as general counsel for the corporation, having been the company's first black officer. This memoir, which Smith dictated during the three years before his death in 1994, is a compelling tale that ends with the inspirational story of Smith's reconciliation with his white relatives who still live in the South. In this highly readable memoir, Looking Beyond Race provides a moving tale that will appeal to readers interested in African American history, politics, labor relations, business, and Michigan history.