Milton in the Long Restoration

Blair Hoxby and Ann Baynes Coiro's edited volume -- a leviathan in its own right -- includes a who's who of Miltonists and of scholars working more widely in the fields of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies, and across the disciplines of literature and history. The volume's length, its august assembly of contributors, and what must have been its considerable cost to produce ... position it as a major statement not only by the editors and their team but also by Oxford University Press. Indeed, it is hard to think of a recent book with "Restoration" in the title that can compare to Milton in the Long Restoration either in terms of substance or as an event ... The individual brilliance of the essays is not in doubt -- no mean feat for a book this capacious and wide-ranging. * Matthew Augustine, Huntington Library Quarterly *
If I had to identify a focal point for this year's crop of scholarship, it would have to be Hoxby and Coiro's Milton in the Long Restoration ... It is a formidable collection, both in size and importance for the field. The idea of reconceptualizing Milton's period affiliations is a powerful one that provides new insights into the meaning of Milton's work in his own time and what he came to be in the century following his death. * Matthew Mroz, The Year's Work in English Studies *
Milton in the Long Restoration [is] ... endowed with ocean-liner magnitude, making it impossible to do justice to the wealth of discerning argument found in the twenty-nine essays bringing together new work by important Miltonists and scholars of the Restoration and eighteenth century ... This is an invaluable book. * Lowell Gallagher, SEL *
In this expertly curated collection Blair Hoxby and Ann Baynes Coiro make a compelling case for nothing less than a new approach to periodization, offering a substantive alternative to myriad studies in which Milton marks the end of the English Renaissance or Paradise Lost the culmination of Renaissance epic, humanism, or Reformation poetics. Instead the volume directs our attention to Milton's earliest readers during the era that the editors designate as the Long Restoration ... Hoxby and Coiro draw together an exceptional array of essays to make the import of this period clear, illustrating not only how early critics framed Milton's works for generations of readers, but also how Milton served as a touchstone in the development of English poetry and poetics. This massive volume affords unfamiliar readers a thorough introduction to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poets and critics for whom Milton was a signal influence. * Russ Leo, Renaissance Quarterly 71.3 *
Blair Hoxby and Ann Baynes Coiro's edited volume—a leviathan in its own right—includes a who's who of Miltonists and of scholars working more widely in the fields of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies, and across the disciplines of literature and history. The volume's length, its august assembly of contributors, and what must have been its considerable cost to produce . . . position it as a major statement not only by the editors and their team but also by Oxford University Press. Indeed, it is hard to think of a recent book with "Restoration" in the title that can compare to Milton in the Long Restoration either in terms of substance or as an event. . . . The individual brilliance of the essays is not in doubt—no mean feat for a book this capacious and wide-ranging. * Matthew Augustine, Huntington Library Quarterly, 80.4 (2017) *
If I had to identify a focal point for this year's crop of scholarship, it would have to be Hoxby and Coiro's Milton in the Long Restoration. . . It is a formidable collection, both in size and importance for the field. The idea of reconceptualizing Milton's period affiliations is a powerful one that provides new insights into the meaning of Milton's work in his own time and what he came to be in the century following his death. * Matthew Mroz, The Year's Work in English Studies, 97.1 (2018) *
Milton in the Long Restoration [is] . . . endowed with ocean-liner magnitude, making it impossible to do justice to the wealth of discerning argument found in the twenty-nine essays bringing together new work by important Miltonists and scholars of the Restoration and eighteenth century. ... This is an invaluable book. * Lowell Gallagher, SEL 58.1 (2018) *
This is a brick of a book: 575 pages of text, and 29 contributors who together comprise a Homeric catalogue of distinguished Miltonists [...] overall the essays are deeply impressive. * Peter C. Herman, San Diego State University, in Milton Quarterly *
Milton in the Long Restoration, edited by Blair Hoxby and Ann Baynes Coiro, is a thoughtful collection of unexpected approaches to the great poet of the seventeenth century. * George E. Haggerty, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *