Happy Birthday, Mr. Milton!

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Dartmouth, Guardian.uk, John Milton, Paradise Lost

Today is the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton, born in 1608 in the City of London.  There is much in the news today about this event, so I am just adding to the mix:

• -visit the Guardian.uk to hear Philip Pullman read a short excerpt from Paradise Lost; the Guardian also has a Milton Quiz, a blog post on Milton vs. Shakespeare, and a comment by Terry Eagleton on Milton the dissident.
• -head over to Dartmouth’s Milton Reading Room, a great resource with text of poems, some prose and select literary criticism.
• -the Milton-L Homepage
• -John Milton and Seventeenth Century Culture, a site of the University of South Carolina Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections [Thomas Cooper Library], site last updated June 2002
• -the John Milton Chronology
• -his works at Bartleby.com
• -Milton Cottage :  Milton’s home and Museum in Buckinghamshire, UK
• -Events and celebrations at Christ’s College, Cambridge; also see the site of the Milton Quatercentenary:  events in the UK posted by the Cambridge University Library [events throughout 2008, so many have already passed]

Milton Reading Room, Dartmouth

Exhibitions of Note at The Morgan Library

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Charles Dickens, Christmas Carol, John Milton, Morgan Library & Museum, Paradise Lost

The Morgan Library & Museum has two exhibitions of interest:

John Milton’s Paradise Lost:  October 7, 2008- January 4, 2009

“John Milton’s Paradise Lost celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Milton (1608–1674) with an exhibition drawn from the Morgan’s collection of the English poet’s work, which includes the only surviving manuscript of Paradise Lost. This manuscript of the first book of Milton’s epic, transcribed and corrected under the direction of the blind poet, was used to set the type for the first printing of the poem in 1667. Copies of the first and later editions of the poem, including the first edition of Milton’s work printed in the United States, are also on view. The exhibition also features Albrecht Dürer’s engraving The Fall of Man, William Blake’s Milton: Old Age, Richard Westall’s watercolor depiction of Satan, and a rarely seen miniature portrait of Milton.”

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol: November 20, 2008, through January 4, 2009

“Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Mr. Fezziwig, Bob Cratchit, the Ghost of Christmas Past-in the age of film and television these characters from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol are universally familiar. The story has been told as a stage musical, a serious dramatic film, and a modern comedy.

But, in the end, it all comes back to a magical book written by Dickens in a six-week flurry of activity in late 1843. Greeted with universal acclaim at the time of publication, A Christmas Carol might rightfully be called an “instant masterpiece.” William Makepeace Thackeray called it a “national benefit” and an American factory owner gave his workers an extra day’s holiday when he had finished reading it.

When the manuscript was returned after printing Dickens arranged for it to be finely bound in red morocco leather and presented it as a gift to his solicitor. It was purchased by Pierpont Morgan in the 1890s. Beginning on November 20, visitors to The Morgan Library & Museum can view the original manuscript by Dickens in a special presentation in the museum’s famed McKim Building.“

The Morgan Library & Museum is located at 225 Madison Ave at 36th Street, New York City.

A Milton Marathon and a few other book bits…

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Fine Books & Collections, John Milton, Legacy Library, Library Thing, Paradise Lost

See this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a marathon reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost at St. Olaf College in Minnesota - a celebration of the author’s upcoming 400th birthday (December 9, 1608); there are other such plans at several colleges.  Not sure I could sit through such a day!

Legacy Libraries Project at Library Thing: ”I See Dead People’s Books,” the cataloguing of famous people’s  libraries.  See the lists of those “completed” and those in process, and learn how to start your own project on your favorite author (I see none yet for Jane Austen but she is listed in the Proposed Libraries.)

And is it true? and so very sad to hear that Fine Books & Collections will be going solely digital beginning January 2009. And so it, too, goes the way of Biblio.  See this link at Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis, with whom I heartily agree… I, too, ”want” the hard copy of these journals on my shelf.  Why can we not sustain such a journal as this I wonder??