Wife to Mr. Milton
Robert Graves
- 383 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Wife to Mr. Milton
Robert Graves
About This Book
"[A] penetrating study of one of the strangest marriages in history... Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius, has the gift for fleshing the bare bones of history ( Kirkus Reviews ). The famous poet John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, had a wife, and their story is both strange and tumultuous. Consummate historical novelist and poet Robert Graves tells the story from the perspective of the wife, Marie Powell, a young woman who married the poet to escape a debt. From the start, the couple proves mismatched; Milton is a domineering and insensitive husband set on punishing Marie for not providing the promised dowry. John Milton and his young wife are both religiously and temperamentally incompatible, and this portrait of their relationship is spellbinding, if not distinctly unflattering to Milton. It also provides fascinating accounts of the political upheavals of the time, including the execution of Charles I. This book is an excellent read for fans of historical fiction. "Vivid, rich and forthright." — The Sunday Times
Frequently asked questions
Information
Glossary
abecedarian | one who is still learning his A B C |
account | period of pregnancy |
acrimonious | acrid |
aegilops | ulcer in the inner corner of the eye |
Anabaptists | a sect that considered it necessary to be re-baptized |
anothergates | Otherwise |
antics | grotesque figures imitating the antique |
anti-Scripturists | a sect that denied the final authority of the Scripture |
armiger | entitled to a coat-of-arms |
atlasses | Eastern silk-satins |
Auriga | charioteer |
avence | herb bennet |
Aqua-Mirabilis | “The wonderful water prepared of cloves, galangals, cubebs, mace, cardamums, nutmegs, ginger and spirit of wine, digested 24 hours, then distilled” |
bagnio | a Turkish-bath establishment which was also a brothel |
battle | battalion |
Bezoartis | a preparation against poison, made from the livers and hearts of vipers, etc. |
blind buzzard | a wilfully ignorant person |
brawl | a sort of cotillon |
breeching | beating on the breeches |
brown-bill | a halberd or battle-axe with the blade stained brown, usually with ox-blood |
budge | stiffly grave |
buff-coat | a soldier’s coat of stout buff-coloured leather |
buffle-head | a person as stupid as a buffalo |
butt | tree-trunk with its branches lopped off |
buzz | rumour |
camp-fever | typhus, complicated by relapsing fever |
cashiered | paid off from the Army. (Not necessarily discharged with ignominy) |
cat-in-pan, to turn | to be a political turn-coat |
caudle | warm spiced gruel, mixed with wine or ale |
chaldron | 36 bushels |
to cheek | to grasp the pike by the cheeks, or side-pieces, and bring it to the ready, as if about to lunge |
Chiliasts | a sect that “expected the Millennium any day soon” |
the claps... |