‘Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n …’

In Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties – blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution – Paradise Lost’s apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, or exposes the cruelty of Christianity.

John Leonard’s revised edition of Paradise Lost contains full notes, elucidating Milton’s biblical, classical and historical allusions and discussing his vivid, highly original use of language and blank verse.

The first complete annotated edition of Milton's poetry available in a one-volume paperback. The text is established from original sources, with collations of all known manuscripts, chronology and verbal variants recorded. Works in Latin, Greek and Italian are included with new literal translations.

Another adventure for the intrepid space/time traveller. The Doctor (Tom Baker) has returned the TARDIS to his home planet of Gallifrey, but why has he forbidden Leela (Louise Jameson) to accompany him? Why, upon claiming the Presidency, does he expel every senior Time Lord to the outer wastes? And what plan is he hatching with the hostile Vardans? The only people he seems to have taken into his confidence are K9 and Chancellor Borusa, but whatever game the Doctor is playing, he has reckoned without the return of an old foe... This story marks the departure from the series of Leela and K9 Mark 1.

Double bill of classic 'Doctor Who' television serials. 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' (1975) is the last storyline to feature Jon Pertwee as the Doctor. When a group of scientists who want to return the Earth to a time before technology use dinosaurs to try and force people to flee the cities, the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) set out to stop them. In 'The Android Invasion' (1975) the Doctor (now played by Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane believe that they are back on Earth when the TARDIS lands near what seems to be a peaceful English village. But why is the local pub deserted? And who are the spacesuit-wearing figures with guns for fingers? The intrepid pair set out to discover the truth.

All four classic Doctor Who stories featuring the alien species, the Sontarans, who first appeared in the 1973 story, 'The Time Warrior'. The Sontarans are a self -cloning race who live in a militaristic society in the 'southern spiral arm of the galaxy'. Humanoid in appearance, with a squat build and distinctive dome-shaped heads, they are far stronger than mere humans and possess an unquenchable thirst for war. The other stories in this set are 'The Invasion of Time' (1977), 'The Two Doctors' (1984) and 'The Sontaran Experiment' (1975).

The poems of John Milton (1608-74) have inspired readers for generations and the selection in this new edition spans his entire career, from his earliest works to the magnificent epics of his later life. The devotional 'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity', his first great poem, anticipates the probing religious questions of Paradise Lost. Works such as 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' consider divisions of loyalties, while 'A Masque' ('Comus') explores Milton's great theme of temptation, and the pastoral elegy 'Lycidas' contemplates mortality and the meaning of human life. This volume includes considerable selections from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained - Milton's late epics on the Fall of Man and Christ's Temptation in the Wilderness - and the complete Samson Agonistes, in which the great hero undergoes a profound crisis of faith in his final hours.