Paradise Lost by John Milton illustrated by John Martin @paradiselost1827 - Tumblr Blog

About the Book

For my book blog, I chose Paradise Lost by John Milton illustrated by John Martin. The poem Paradise Lost was originally published in 1667 by the English poet John Milton (1608-1674). The first edition was made up of ten books but the second edition published in 1674 consists of twelve books. The book of Paradise Lost that I looked at used the second edition of the original text, splitting the poem into twelve books, taking up two volumes. It was published in London by publisher Septimus Prowett in 1827. It is formatted using quarto and contains twenty-four illustrations by the artist John Martin. It was printed by the printer Thomas White and it is part of the Sid Leary Memorial Collection at the University of British Columbia. The call number for this book at the UBC library is PR3560 1827. I had a really amazing time getting to see this book and was amazed at the amount of information I could find about it, especially about the illustrations and their artist.

John Martin

John Martin was an English artist born July 19, 1789 in Haydon Bridge and passed February 17, 1854. He was born to a poor family and was one out of four brothers, all quite eccentric. He was known for his bold style and is now regarded as a main player in England’s Romantic movement due to his depictions of human relationships within nature. He began his study in the arts working as an apprentice to a coachbuilder and studied heraldic paintings. The following year he began studying under the Italian artist Boniface Musso. For a while, he worked at a china painting business and then as a glassmaker before deciding to become an independent painter. His painting career consisted of many Bible scenes and moments from classic mythology and were highly regarded by the public. By the late 1820’s he moved onto creating engravings, specifically mezzotint for which he created a printing room underneath his studio and hired professional printers. He was also very interested in engineering and created projects to purify the Thames and ventilate coal mines. In 1825 he was approached by the publisher Septimus Prowett who paid him 3500 guineas to illustrate Paradise Lost. His illustrations for the poem gained international popularity. E.V. Lucas, an English writer, described Martin’s illustrations as having “a splendor to which the word Miltonic can be applied”

Paradise Lost and Illustrations in the 19th Century

There seemed to be a trend in the 19th century of publishing Paradise Lost with illustrations. There are two other well known artists besides Martin who have illustrated Paradise Lost and they were William Blake and Gustave Doré. The book with Blake’s illustrations was published in 1807 and his illustrations were done in watercolour. The book with Doré’s illustrations was published in 1866 and his illustrations were etchings. Most illustrators of Paradise Lost before Martin were focused on the depiction of Hell and the character of Satan. What makes Martin different from these artists is his focus on the surroundings rather than the characters, especially that of Eden. His characters are dwarfed by their surroundings. This was very much in theme with artistic trends at the time such as romanticism which had a large focus on scenery, often called the sublime. Another way that Martin differs from these other artists is the traces of early industrial architecture. I will be going into detail about both of these features in later posts.

Blake

Doré

Mezzotint

Mezzotint is a printmaking process in the intallio family. It is an engraving process that can achieve half-tones without the use of techniques such as cross hatching or stipple. To create a mezzotint print, a metal plate is roughened all over to hold ink. Selected areas are then smoothed to create areas of light within shade and darkness. The images that mezzotint creates are darker and softer than that of the traditional copper engraving. The mezzotint process works well for the illustrations of Paradise Lost as so much of the themes of Paradise Lost are good versus evil or dark versus light. Paradise Lost moves from a dark to a light place and the engravings do as well. The art historian C.H. Collins Baker says Martin’s work shows the “incomparable resources of mezzotint afforded for a Miltonian world what no other process of engraving could have done.”

The Sublime

The Sublime was an idea that was central to the Romantic period in the 19th century. Many consider John Martin to be the embodiment of the Sublime. Edmund Burke describes the Sublime as “art that alludes to a magnificence beyond all capacity to movement, assessment, or reproduction”. Martin encapsulates this 19th century art style for the illustrations in a book written in the 17th century. Martin creates expansive, awe inspiring scenery which dwarf the characters. The surroundings are large and powerful while the figures in the illustrations are small and helpless. This artistic trend, while not existing when Paradise Lost was originally written, works well in portraying the immensity of the universe Milton has created.

Industrialization

Some have described John Martin’s illustrations as the “Mechanical Sublime”. This is due to the fact that much of his work was influenced by the new architecture brought around by industrialization. The Bridge Over Chaos almost looks like a sewer tunnel or a mine shaft. Furthermore, the Great Hall of Pandemonium contains huge rings of gas-lights. This fact is most interesting as these industrial features did not exist when the poem was written. The illustration that John Martin does for this publishing of Paradise Lost could not have existed when the poem was originally published. However, they still embody the essence of the story. The illustrations allow 19th century readers to connect to the poem in a way they were unable to before. It is also interesting to see that the hints of industrialization in Martin’s illustrations are only ever seen in his depictions of Hell. Through his illustrations, Martin was able to include contemporary anxieties about mechanisation and industrialization in a 17th century poem. Kester Svendsen wraps up how Martin’s illustrations add to the poem by saying, “all express a nineteenth century style answerable to the cosmic features of Milton’s poem and to the form and pressure of Martin’s times.”

Septimus Prowett

Septimus Prowett is the publisher of the 1827 edition of Paradise Lost. But for a book with such famous illustrations, I was surprised to find there was not much written about him. A casual google search reveals almost nothing and I only found one academic paper written about him. Prowett was born in Southwark, London on February 27, 1797 as the seventh child of a grocer and tea merchant. Septimus began publishing in 1820 with a partner in the firm R. and S. Prowett. The ‘R’ was most likely his brother Robert who probably helped to finance the venture. The first major work that they published was the 1820 General History of Worcestershire by John Chambers. They published several books after that and in 1823 Robert left the publishing business most likely because he thought that the publishing firm was doing well enough that he no longer had to help finance. He was described by the biographer of John Payne Collier as “one of the shrewdest book dealers of his generation”. In 1823-1824 Prowett began his two major publications including Paradise Lost illustrated by John Martin. The other was a two-volume folio of the works of sculpture Antonio Canova. In 1824, Prowett purchased the original 1667 contract between Milton and his publisher, Simmons. He also bought papers from the house of Jacob Tonson who had published the first illustrated edition of Paradise Lost in 1688. What is interesting about Prowett, is that in promoting his publication of Paradise Lost, he used the artist of the illustrations as the main draw. The initial fascicle for Paradise Lost in 1825 appeared with Martin’s name listed on the title page. Prowett is the first publisher of Paradise Lost to give equal weight to the author and illustrator. The publication of Paradise Lost was a large commercial success and was the high point of Prowett’s career. In 1828 he moved several times and it is not clear why. He published an edition of Cambell’s Poems in 1830 that seems to be the last of his publications. Nothing can be seen of what he did for 12 years in which there is record he was a picture dealer until his retirement in 1864.

Before the 19th century, illustrations did not add as much to a book. They were usually limited to the frontispiece or multiple artists contributed to one book. Many 18th century illustrations look quite similar to one another. The focus was on the story and the illustrations were meant to take the background. In the 19th century what was wanted from illustrations changed greatly. Stories were chosen to display the talent of an artist through their illustration. The art in the book became more of the focus than the text, which at that point was often well known and unchanging. Publishers seemed to be responding to the newly educated public with more money who had grown up in the beginnings of the industrial revolution. They wanted more than the illustrations from the 18th century that all looked quite similar and demanded uniqueness and variety. Porwett, it seems, had a sense of what would sell and made his market for the public. In their paper, Howard JM Hanley, Margaret Cooper, and Susan Morris say of Prowett, “it was he who recognized that Martin’s style, with its stress on architecture and technological design, and the subordination of human activity to the surroundings, reflected in a new way the conflict between promise and uncertainty that underpins Paradise Lost.”

Reflection

Getting to see this book and flip through it in person was an amazing experience. I had to be given a book pillow for the spine of the book and because of its large size. There was a lot I really loved about the way the book was printed. I really enjoyed the large font as well as the amount of space between each word and line. It made reading what can be a pretty difficult text much clearer and simple. I also really enjoyed that about every 8 lines they gave you the line number. There was also a segment at the beginning of each book called the “Argument” where you were given a summary of what occurs in that book. This made it much easier to understand what was going on as I was reading it because I already had an idea. I also appreciated that under the illustration, they gave you the exact line the illustration was referring to. The actual physicality of the volumes were very interesting. The paper used was quite thick and rough but the illustrations felt much smoother. There was also a thin sheet to protect the illustrations. The volumes were not in the best condition. There seemed to be some damage on the paper and the marbling on the cover was peeling off in places. However there were no tears or anything like that and it was all still readable so it did not take anything away for me. I think what made this book really stand out to me in person was the fact that it was so simple yet still elegant. While the pages with the text were quite simple and plain, it made the cover, the title page, and the illustrations stand out much more. The way that the book was formatted, you could tell it was the illustrations that were the main focus.

There were some questions I had after looking at the book that I was unable to find information about. I was unable to find out how many books were printed of the 1827 edition of Paradise Lost or how much they sold for. The book also acknowledges what was the current monarch, King George the Fourth. I was curious as to why but I assume it is due to the long history in England of dedicating books to the monarch. I was also curious as to why they published it in two volumes, especially because the print took up so little space on the page and the text was so big and so far apart it could have taken up even less. I would venture a guess as to say that the book’s purpose was meant to be as a piece of art rather than to be read and so to make it look nice was the main priority. I would also guess that you could sell it for more with two volumes.

Sources Used

Atashi, Laleh, and Alireza Anushiravani. "Paradise Lost Dressed In Thr Costume Of History: John Martin's Rendition Of Paradise Lost". K@Ta, vol 13, no. 2, 2011, Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

"British Library". Bl.Uk, 2022, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/john-martins-illustrations-

for-paradise-lost-1827. Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

Hanley, Howard JM et al. "The Mysterious Septimus Prowett: Publisher Of The John Martin "Paradise Lost"". The British Art Journal, vol 2, no. 1, 2000. JSTOR, Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

"John Martin - Illustration History". Illustrationhistory.Org, 2022, https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/john-martin. Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

"John Martin's Illustrations Of Paradise Lost (1827)". Publicdomainreview.Org, 2022, https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/john-martin-s-illustrations-of-paradise-lost-1827. Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

"Plates Designed And Engraved By John Martin". Metmuseum.Org, 2022, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/334091.

"Sublime Art - The History Of The Sublime Movement". Artincontext.Org, 2022, https://artincontext.org/sublime-art/#:~:text=Edmund%20Burke%20created%20the%20Sublime,intellect%20is%20aware%20of%20experiencing. Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

Svendsen, Kester. "John Martin And The Expulsion Scene Of Paradise Lost". Studies In English Literature, vol 1, no. 1, 1961. JSTOR, Accessed 19 Apr 2022.

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