Dores Illustrations for Paradise Lost (Dover Pictorial Archives)

Gustave Dors Romantic style of illustration, supremely imaginative and richly detailed, was ideally suited to literary subjects. His woodengraved illustrations for John Miltons monumental epic poem Paradise Lost, recounting mankinds fall from the grace of God through the work of Satan, were among his finest and most dramatic works. This volume presents superb reproductions of all 50 plates drawn by Dor and engraved in his studios for the original edition of Paradise Lost.Artists and art lovers will find in these pages supreme examples of the illustrators art. Among the events depicted: the expulsion of Satan from heaven, Adam and Eve in Paradise, the nineday fall of Lucifers legions to Hell, the Creation, the temptation of Eve, the Flood, Moses holding up the Ten Commandments, and the fearsome creatures Milton referred to as Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.The dreamlike, otherworldly quality Dor often brought to his work seems especially appropriate for Paradise Lost with its lofty spirit and epic events. Indeed, Dors grand conception seems to realize perfectly Miltons own poetic version. Appropriate quotes from the text of Paradise Lost are printed alongside each illustration. A plot summary of the entire poem is also included.