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Comment by emptybits | Hacker News Reader

Many ways to read this epic poem. Besides flat text versions from Wikisource and Project Gutenberg, here's a PDF, typeset with 17th century inspiration: http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/paradiselost.pdf

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Thanks for this PDF! I was confused to see the words "Paradife Loft" and thought that it was some issue with the PDF, which is not the case.

TIL that ſ (long s) is an archaic form of the lower case letter s.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

In media, ſ (long s) is often used to signify a heightened version of the American colonial and American Revolution periods.

The latter-day Futurama episode "All the Presidents' Heads" uses it as joke a couple times when they time-warp during the American Revolution.

Is that actually an assertion that's true for media in general, or was it only true for that gag in Futurama?

I do a lot with 18th-century music and living history, where long esses are prevalent, and it's been a common point of confusion for students/the public that turns into a gag. I released a book of original music a few years ago[1] and people still call me a "compofer"

[1] - https://github.com/tsmacdonald/first-collection/blob/master/...

For historical flavor, though not necessarily reading ease, you might also enjoy the scans of the Boston Public Library copies of the (nearly) original, hosted on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/paradiselostpoem00milt_0/ https://archive.org/details/paradiselostpoem00milt_1/

Don't forget EPUB/KEPUB/MOBI, for those of us with ereaders:

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-milton/paradise-lost

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