Contract for Publication of Paradise Lost
- When
- 1667
- Where
- London
- Episodes
- 3
In 1667, John Milton sold the publication rights for his epic poem Paradise Lost to London printer Samuel Simmons for an initial payment of £5. The first edition, a quarto priced at three shillings, was published in August 1667 and sold out within eighteen months.
Episodes
- Stationers' Register Entry
Samuel Simmons registered Paradise Lost in the Stationers' register in 1667, marking his first independent publication entry.
- Sale of Publication Rights
Milton sold the rights to Paradise Lost to Simmons for £5 on 27 April 1667, with a bonus clause for sold-out print runs.
- First Edition Publication
The first quarto edition of Paradise Lost was published in August 1667 at a price of three shillings per copy.
Background and detail
Contract Terms. On 27 April 1667, Milton agreed to sell the publication rights for Paradise Lost to Samuel Simmons. The deal involved an initial payment of £5, with a further £5 payable if the print run of 1,300 to 1,500 copies sold out. This transaction marked Simmons' first registered publication in his own name.
Publication Details. The first edition of Paradise Lost was published in August 1667 as a quarto. Each copy was priced at three shillings. The initial print run consisted of between 1,300 and 1,500 copies, which were sold out within eighteen months of release, demonstrating the poem's immediate commercial success.
People involved
- John Milton · Author and rights holder
- Samuel Simmons · Publisher and printer
Sources
- John Milton Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-22
- Samuel Simmons (printer) Wikipedia, revision of 2025-08-11
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.