






This is the February 1992 Project Gutenberg release of:

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The oldest etext known to Project Gutenberg (ca. 1964-1965)
(If you know of any older ones, please let us know.)


Introduction  (one page)

This etext was originally created in 1964-1965 according to Dr.
Joseph Raben of Queens College, NY, to whom it is attributed by
Project Gutenberg.  We had heard of this etext for years but it
was not until 1991 that we actually managed to track it down to
a specific location, and then it took months to convince people
to let us have a copy, then more months for them actually to do
the copying and get it to us.  Then another month to convert to
something we could massage with our favorite 486 in DOS.  After
that is was only a matter of days to get it into this shape you
will see below.  The original was, of course, in CAPS only, and
so were all the other etexts of the 60's and early 70's.  Don't
let anyone fool you into thinking any etext with both upper and
lower case is an original; all those original Project Gutenberg
etexts were also in upper case and were translated or rewritten
many times to get them into their current condition.  They have
been worked on by many people throughout the world.

In the course of our searches for Professor Raben and his etext
we were never able to determine where copies were or which of a
variety of editions he may have used as a source.  We did get a
little information here and there, but even after we received a
copy of the etext we were unwilling to release it without first
determining that it was in fact Public Domain and finding Raben
to verify this and get his permission.  Interested enough, in a
totally unrelated action to our searches for him, the professor
subscribed to the Project Gutenberg listserver and we happened,
by accident, to notice his name. (We don't really look at every
subscription request as the computers usually handle them.) The
etext was then properly identified, copyright analyzed, and the
current edition prepared.

To give you an estimation of the difference in the original and
what we have today:  the original was probably entered on cards
commonly known at the time as "IBM cards" (Do Not Fold, Spindle
or Mutilate) and probably took in excess of 100,000 of them.  A
single card could hold 80 characters (hence 80 characters is an
accepted standard for so many computer margins), and the entire
original edition we received in all caps was over 800,