This three-volume set of book is titled "The Poetical Works Of John Milton" and was published in London by William Pickering in 1839. The books have five raised bands, six gilt-ruled compartments with gilt lettering and gilt decorations, polished calf covers with double gilt-fillet borders, gilt dentelles with marbled endpapers, they were bound by Bartlett of Boston and Zaehnsdorf, one of the best binders in Europe in the 1800's, the half title reads "The Aldine Edition of the British Poets - The Poems of John Milton in Three Volumes", the top edge is gilt for each volume, and they all have the original maroon markers. Volume I has a frontis portrait of John Milton, followed by the title page, which has Pickering's anchor device to identify the publisher and is dated 1839, four pages of Contents, a long introduction about The Life Of Milton - it runs from v - cxx, which is nearly 120 pages long, then an Appendix which runs from cxxi to cxxxiv, two leaves of Complimentary Verses, a sonnet and Advertisement that is fifteen pages long, then ?Book I to IV of Paradise Lost (153 pages). Volume II contains Books v through xii of Paradise Lost, for a total of 284 pages, then it has Books I to LV of Paradise Regained, for a total of 372 in this volume, and Volume III has the poem Samson Agonistes, then Comus, A Mask, followed by Lycidas, Penseroso, L'Allegro, Arcades, Miscellaneous Poems, Sonnets, Psalms, Elegiarum Liber, and Sylvarum Liber, for a total of 372 pages in the book. The books measure 6 3/4 x 4 1/4 in. wide, with tight bindings and clean pages and text for the most part, with occasional brown spots here and there, faded spines, and light rubbing on the spines. #56 #1575