Paradise Lost. A Poem in Twelve Books. John Milton. Tenth Edition, Adorn'd with Sculptures. Printed for Jacob Tonson, at Shakespear's Head, over-against Katharine Street in the Strand. 1719. [10], 315, [40] printed pages, some slightly stained and age-toned. Portrait frontispiece, 12 copper engraved plates. All edges speckled. Contemporary ink ownership inscriptions on front and back endpapers and title page, dated 1794. Provenance: William Gundry - 1696-1794 (?) & possibly the 1778 Mayor of Dorchester. Inner hinges and at gathering 'E', the binding has become very loose. 95 x 150 mm. Contemporary full calf; spine in five compartments with raised bands. Rubbed and slightly worn, corners bumped; spine with mild cracking and wear at the foot. Although anonymous, there is evidence for John Hughes' editorship of this 1719 edition in a letter from Hughes to publisher Tonson dated 17 August 1719 (BM Add Ms, 28275). The 1719 edition of Paradise Lost is the first to which anyone can with certainty, attach the name of an editor - John Hughes. And, in spite of its unprepossessing format, it is also the first edition to have been corrected against a first edition 1667 text. For the first time the word 'sin', omitted from every edition since the first, was restored at 11.427: 'Nor sinnd that sin, yet from that sin derive'. Even though he made an effort to eliminate progressive errors in preceding editions (hard is corrected to hid, border'd-broider'd, vanquisht-vanisht, and bane-bann), Hughes allowed fourteen errors from the 1711 edition to slip through into his 10th edition.