Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

Rating:
Summary: Great Price, Good Selection, But Sparse Footnotes
Review: Excluding the lengthy epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, this Dover Thrift edition provides nearly all of John Milton's poetry that you are likely to encounter, including the 45-page dramatic poem Samson Agonistes.

I recommend this Dover edition, but with some reservation. The price is low, the print is large and easy to read, but the footnotes are sparse. I relied on both a good dictionary for help with archaic words and on Thomas Bulfinch's "The Age of Fable" for aid in unraveling obscure poetic references to Greek and Roman mythology.

If you don't have some familiarity with Shakespeare or other 17th century poets or writers, you might consider an edition with more complete annotation. I suggest either the Oxford World's Classics "Selected Poetry" by John Milton (more extensive footnotes, but somewhat inaccessible in an appendix) or the Everyman edition, "Complete English Poems, Of Education and Aeropagitica" (footnotes at the page bottom, but the print throughout is a bit small.)