Robert Graves — Wife To Mr Milton

Penguin 1984 Paperback, 416pp. With impressive literary power, with a beauty that makes this novel live and glow in the consciousness of the reader, Robert Graves unfolds the story of the tragic and eventful life of Marie Powell, who, at the age of sixteen, was pushed into marrying the man who was England’s greatest epic poet—and knew it—John Milton. The story, by an acknowledged master of the historical novel, has a triple fascination. First, for its tender account of the romance Marie Powell found outside the walls of her tyrannical husband’s house, and the utter misery to which he enforced her. Then, for the astute study of the â€oesublime” Milton of Paradise Lost, at last portrayed in his true light, in those characteristics which led him to become Oliver Cromwell’s Dr. Goebbels. And further, for the brilliant account of one of the most breath-taking epochs in English history, when that kingdom was ravaged by a bloody civil war and the tides of fortune swayed from one to the other side of the opposing camps—the King against his parliament, tyranny against freedom—culminating in the dramatic execution of Charles I, and the establishment of a republic, all of which assumes added significance in the light of today’s events. (ISBN: 9780140010244). Good.