Milton Sold Paradise Lost for Five Pounds

On 27 April 1667, the blind poet John Milton sold the publishing rights to Paradise Lost to the London stationer Samuel Simmons. By then Milton had lost his sight entirely, and the agreement was sealed on his behalf rather than signed in his own hand.

The terms were modest. Milton received £5 immediately, with another £5 due once the first run of 1,300 copies sold, and the chance of further payments across two more editions. He died in 1674 having collected only £10 for the poem now regarded as the greatest epic in English.

It is the earliest surviving contract between an English author and a publisher.

The original document survives at the British Library (Add MS 18861), with a contemporary copy held at Trinity College, Cambridge. Beyond its literary fame, the agreement marks a foundational moment in the history of authorship and copyright, written words exchanged for a price at the dawn of the modern book trade.