Reviews

Masson is the indispensable biographer of John Milton. He would receive more attention if not for his completeness -- the life of Milton takes up six volumes. He provides yet another example of the magisterial scholarship of the Victorians. The tendency to indulge in flights of Romantic grandeur, which attracts the derision in the twenty-first century, makes Masson more engaging than other Milton biographers who combine lesser erudition with weaker emotions.