Areopagitica (facsimile of 1644 first edition on CD-ROM)

Milton, John (introduction by Nicolas Barker)

ISBN 10: 1891788094 / ISBN 13: 9781891788093

Published by London (Oakland: Octavo) 1644; 1998, 1644

About this Item

New digital facsimile (in electronic PDF format on CD-ROM disc) of the 1644 first edition of this history-making polemic in favor of freedom of the press by poet and essayist John Milton (author of Paradise Lost), from a copy in the collection of Bridwell Library. This Octavo Edition contains detailed digital images (may be magnified at up to 600% of original size) as well as a new introduction by Nicolas Barker and detailed bibliographical information. This high-resolution version presents this work in the most detailed and accurate reproduction ever.

Seller Inventory # 8VMIAR02

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Areopagitica (facsimile of 1644 first edition on CD-ROM)
• Publisher: London (Oakland: Octavo) 1644; 1998
• Publication Date: 1644
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1891788094
• ISBN 13: 9781891788093
• Binding: No Binding
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Octavo Editions

About this title

Synopsis

When John Milton wrote Areopagitica in 1644, he was not making a contribution to the great debate on church versus state or the limits of toleration, except incidentally. Areopagitica was the result of the response to his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce the previous year. Advocating divorce seemed to strike at the roots of any religious society; it was universally condemned, and a divine of the Westminster Assembly demanded from the pulpit that Milton’s tract be burnt. The Stationers’ Company, less interested in theology than the preservation of the copyright system (Milton, like most of his contemporaries, had not obtained a license for the book), joined in the chorus of condemnation. In Areopagitica, Milton first of all defended himself and his right to express what he had written, and then he moved on to consider a new aspect of the problem, the rights of a book itself, independent of the intention of its author.

On the day the English Parliament abolished the Court of Star Chamber and the ecclesiastical Court of High Commission, freedom of the press, both as an idea and as a material fact, was born. It was to take some time to grow to maturity, and its first years were not without risk and dangers. Parliament had no intention of setting the press free––rather of transferring control into its own hands. But when it finally got around to tackling the problem two years later with the Ordinance of June 16, 1643, Pandora’s box had opened––political consciousness had come to the country, brought by the hundreds of books and pamphlets that had been printed in the interval. So not only did this Ordinance have little or no practical effect, it created a new and separate idea of debate among the mass of religious and political controversy: How free can speech be? It was against this background that Areopagitica was published in 1644.

Commentary by Nicolas Barker, searchable live text.

From the Publisher

Imaged from the collection of the Bridwell Library