358 years ago today, on April 27, 1667 (April 5, 1667, the lunar calendar), Milton sold the copyright to Paradise Lost for £ 10. "Paradise Lost" is an epic written by the 17th century British poet John Milton on the title of Genesis of the Old Testament Bible. The content mainly describes the story of the fallen angel Lucifer (Satan) recovering from his failed rebellion against God, his jealousy of the world, and his use of his strategy to transform into a snake and lure Adam and Eve to violate God's ban and steal the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom., resulting in the expulsion of mankind from the Garden of Eden. In 1666 Milton published "the most remarkable, profound, critical, and sublime poem in the English language." On April 27, 1667, the blind and impoverished poet John Milton sold a version of his poem Paradise Lost for £ 10. Milton and publisher Samuel Simmons reached a publishing agreement on April 27, 1667. The agreement allowed publication and sales of up to 4500 copies (three editions were printed in one edition at a time of 1500 copies-the maximum number of prints per edition allowed by British law). The signed agreement stated that Simmons would pay Milton 5 pounds and an additional 5 pounds after each edition was completed. The first edition is a small quarto book and sells for three shillings. The text appears to have been very carefully edited, with revisions by Milton or a close collaborator. However, publisher Simmons found the collection of poems a bit unsalable because of the obscurity of the text and the lack of annotations or interpretation of the original text. Therefore, Simons suggested that Milton add a summary before each volume to explain to the reader the purpose of the work in concise terms. The layout of the text was also changed from Milton's original ten volumes to twelve volumes, dividing the original seven and ten volumes into two volumes respectively. This is an epic style modeled after the usual contemporaries. The second edition, published by Simons in 1674, contained these revisions. Milton also helped revise and edit the edition, which was the last edition later in the year before his death. Simons negotiated a publishing agreement with Milton's widow Elizabeth, and the second edition was followed by a third edition published in 1678. However, in 1680, Simons settled with Elizabeth and paid her £ 10 plus £ 8 for the copyright to the work for the second and third editions. At the same time, Simmons had arranged to sell the rights to bookseller Barabason Aylmer for 25 pounds. Aylmer did not publish a new edition of Paradise Lost because the market was already flooded with Simmons 'editions, but in turn sold the rights to the courageous young publisher Jacob Townsend. When Townsend acquired the rights to Paradise Lost in 1683, it was not yet an extremely popular book. It is believed that his desire to purchase the rights to the book was more motivated by appreciation of Milton and his work than by financial gain. However, through his version, Townsend made the English intellectual community recognize the importance of Milton, protected Milton's reputation as one of the greatest writers in England, and won "Paradise Lost" a permanent seat in the pantheon of literature. He and partner Richard Bentley published his first edition (the fourth edition of Paradise Lost) in 1688. "Paradise Lost" made Townsend a very rich book and a young man who became "Britain's greatest publisher."