John Milton

British poet and intellectual best know for his epic poem "Paradise Lost" (1667), which was written in blank verse. He was the first modern writer to employ unrhymed verse outside of the theatre or translations. His work is generally regarded as surpassed only by Shakespeare. He served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.

He was the son of a scrivener, one of six children of whom three lived. He was a beautiful child with a good education who continued on to Cambridge where he lived so chaste a life that he was given the nickname of "lady." He lived at home from 1632 to 1638 when his mother died. As a gentleman, he traveled for a year.

Puritanical and serious, he married 17-year-old Mary in early 1643. She left him one month later but returned in 1644. They had four children, the first born in July 1646. One of the boys died and after the fourth birth in May 1652, Mary died.

A tutor and writer, Milton was generally beset by money problems. He married his second wife on 22 November 1656 and was widowed a second time when she died in childbirth 15 months later. He married his third and last wife in February 1663; a young sensible girl, Elizabeth Mynshull, who made his last years comfortable.

Milton became more radical in his views as he aged, becoming the master of invective. Losing his sight from his mid-30s, probably from retinal detachment, by March-April 1652 he was wholly blind and worked through secretaries. He adapted well to his blindness, but gout was a torment. Milton spent his last nine years in a cottage (now a museum) and died of consumption "in the middle of the night" on 8 November 1674 in Chalfont St. Giles, England.