Paradise Lost, books 1 and 2, by Milton

Hi! Join us to discuss the first two books of Paradise Lost, the epic seventeenth-century poem by John Milton about the biblical story of the "fall of man":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-milton

In this meeting we'll be discussing only books 1 and 2 of the twelve-book 1674 version of the text. (In future, we may cover more than two books per meeting -- but let's see how this first meeting goes...)

A free online version of the text is available via the second link above, but I personally haven't yet decided which edition of the poem I'll be reading -- I welcome your recommendations..! (Please post in the Comments.)

This event was partly inspired by the following Substack, which is doing a slow readalong of Paradise Lost throughout 2026 -- one book a month:

https://substack.com/@glutenbergbible

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If you sign up to attend the meeting, please read the text beforehand, and be ready to join in with the conversation.

We'll probably be using Google Meet. If you've managed to get a place at the meetup you'll see the meeting link under the Online Event heading on the webpage for this meetup in due course.

If you have problems logging in on the day of the meeting, please leave a message in the Comments section on Meetup. I usually check to see if anybody is having issues.

I hope we'll all enjoy the poem and the discussion!

Kind regards,

Chet