8vo. [8], xii, [2], 246pp, [2]. With an initial blank leaf and a terminal leaf of publisher's advertisements. Contemporary gilt-ruled calf, later rebacked, contrasting red calf lettering-piece. Boards worn, corners exposed. Armorial bookplate of Edward Arthur Lee to FEP, photocopies of bookseller's D. Mellor & A. L. Baxte description and receipt of sale, for £400 in 1992 to David Norman Tappenden, tipped-in to FFEP, photocopy of Tappenden's bookplate pasted to recto of initial blank leaf, scattered spotting.

The first edition in English of poet and polemicist John Milton's (1608-1674) eloquent defence of liberty, Joannis Miltonii Angli defensio pro populo Anglicano contra Claudii Anonymi, aliàs Salmasii, defensionem regiam (1651). A controversial argument for popular sovereignty, Milton's text was occasioned by the publication in November, 1649, of the first learned defence of Charles I following his execution, Defensio regia pro Carolo I, by the French protestant scholar Claude de Saumaise. In response, on 8th January, 1650 the council of state officially commissioned Milton to reply, fearing that the work may threaten relations with the continent and damage the reputation of the new republic. Due to ill health, Milton's impassioned defence of the regicide was not published until 24th February, 1651 - he considered it his finest work in prose. In 1660, following the Restoration, parliament ordered all copies to be destroyed. As late as 1692, the date of this translation, it was necessary that the work was printed abroad.