Rare Editions of Milton Given to Baker Library

Two very rare first editions of John Milton's poems, along with four other early Milton volumes, a two-volume first edition of Lord Byron's Childe Harold'sPilgrimage, and three first editions of the works of Joseph Conrad, have been presented to Baker Library as the gift of Walter J. Brownstone '28 of New York City and his son, Clyde R. Brownstone '57. Their gift was made through The Friends of the Dartmouth Library.

One of the Milton first editions was printed in London in 1645 and contains the first appearance in print of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, as well as the celebrated Ode on the Nativity and all of Milton's great sonnets. It was part of the library of Lord Birkenhead and contains his armorial bookplate.

The other Milton first edition, printed in 1660, is his Brief Notes Upon a lateSermon, Titl'd The Fear of God and theKings, "Wherein many Notorious Wrestings of Scripture, and other Falsities are observed by J. M." This is one of the scarcest of Milton volumes.

The Brownstone gift also includes a two-volume edition of Milton's ParadiseLost and Paradise Regained, "to which is added Samson Agonistes and Poems upon Several Occasions," printed by John Baskerville in 1759 and bearing the William Legge bookplate; an earlier edition of Paradise Regained, dated 1680; and a tract, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, printed in revised form in 1644.

The two volumes of Byron's ChildeHarold's Pilgrimage are first editions, first issues, dated 1812 to 1818. The second volume, containing Cantos III and IV, has the bookplate of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Byron's friend.

The Conrad books in the Brownstone gift are An Outcast of the Islands (1896), The Rover (1923), and To Poland in WarTime, one of only 25 copies printed in London in 1919 for private circulation.