What in Me is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost is about how Milton’s epic poem became part of the modern revolutionary tradition.
It follows the lives of twelve readers - including Dorothy Wordsworth, George Eliot, C.L.R. James, and Jordan Peterson - and looks out how they read and interpreted it in light of the revolutions they were living through.
It comes out in November 2024. You can preorder the US edition here and the UK edition here.
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“Edifying, wide-ranging cultural criticism.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This is a rare and extraordinary book. In tracing the surprising revolutionary legacy of Milton’s epic, Reade has himself produced a liberatory text. This is not only a book for Milton scholars, but anyone invested in the poetics of freedom struggle.”
—Natasha Lennard, author of Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life
“Orlando Reade writes with exhilarating style, luminous clarity, and irreverent wit. Each page of What In Me Is Dark is aflame with ideas—on the relation between politics and evil, abolition and poetry—and with the sublimity of Milton's verse, deftly brought alive. Earth may be hell, but fallen angels, as Reade shows, have been our unexpected guides toward freedom and justice.”
—Anna Della Subin, author of Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine
"Wonderfully written, intelligent and moving. Orlando Reade follows the enduring conversation between Milton's Paradise Lost and revolutionaries across the centuries. Reade reminds us that literature is action, that epic poetry has the power to liberate minds, pens, and voices. Behind every revolution is a song. As it turns out, so often that song has been Paradise Lost.”
—Leah Redmond Chang, author of Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power
“With many new discoveries and insights, Orlando Reade tells the story of how Milton’s Paradise Lost has inspired crucial figures in literature and politics. Reade writes a new history of liberty, as he shows how Milton has provided an influential and enduring resource for a better world, one for which we still strive.”
—Nigel Smith, author of Is Milton Better Than Shakespeare?
“Orlando Reade’s immensely readable history of the reception of Paradise Lost shows how Milton's great poem vaults across the centuries to meet new readers, its radicalism undimmed.”
—Adam Smyth, author of The Book-Makers
“If we ever needed a lesson about the challenges of freedom it is now. Orlando Reade’s passionate and illuminating account of the afterlives of Paradise Lost is an urgent reminder that freedom - in all senses - is poetry: there to be loved, resisted, re-worked and made to sing again for each new generation.”
—Lyndsey Stonebridge, author of We Are Free to Change the World
