First of 2 volumes in 8vo. ff. [2] (blank), pp. [24], lxxxv, [31], 510, ff. [7] (plates, including frontispiece), ff. [3] (blank). Contemporary calf. Spine on 5 bars with red and black panels, edges spread in blue. With engraved frontispiece portrait of John Milton (signed G. Vertue) and 6 engraved plates. Includes tailpieces. 

Thomas Newton, later Bishop of Bristol, Samuel Johnson’s friend from his schooldays, included several of William Lauder’s forged ‘parallels’ in the notes to this magisterial edition of Paradise Lost. However, it contains the forger’s retraction in a a stop-press ‘Postscript’ dated 5 December 1750 (vol. 2, ff. Ff1-4), in which Newton discusses Lauder’s attack on Milton and his later confession.

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