Milton and Sons, A Family Business
In 1652, after a couple of years of waning eyesight, Milton went completely blind. From about 1650 onward, Milton began to rely extensively on a team of researchers, scribes, and amanuenses. Rutgers English Professor Ann Baynes Coiro has used the term “Milton and sons” to describe Milton’s close relationship with two of these young men, Edward and John Phillips, nephews of Milton who attended Milton’s small academy in the early 1640s, and who were adopted into Milton’s household. These young men went on to have publishing careers of their own, but it still remains unclear how much they helped Milton in researching and even co-writing some of the work of the period, particularly Milton’s second Latin defense of the English people, shown here, and a defense of himself.
Joannis Miltoni Defensio Secunda Pro Populo Anglicano (London, 1654)
Milton, now completely blind, wrote a second Latin defense of the English people against an anonymous opponent, which he mistook to be Alexander More. This defense is often cited for its valuable, if sometimes inaccurate, autobiographical account.
Edward Phillips, Letters of State, written by Mr. John Milton, to Most of the Sovereign Princes and Republicks of Europe. From the year 1649. Till the year 1659 (London, 1694)
Long after Milton's death, Milton's nephew assembled the letters of state that Milton had worked on during his service as secretary of foreign tongues under the commonwealth government. Phillips added an account of Milton's life, one of the early biographies of Milton, and four poems that had not previously been printed with Milton's name (three that had never been printed before at all): the sonnets to Vane (which appeared anonymously), to Fairfax, to Cromwell, and to Skinner.
John Phillips, A Satyr against Hypocrites (1655)
This book was written by Milton's nephew and student, who helped him as a researcher and an amanuensis after his blindness.
Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum, or A Compleat Collection of the Poets (Printed for Charles Smith, at the Angel near the Inner Temple-Gate in Fleet-street, 1675)
In the years after Milton's death, Phillips collected an anthology of poets and provided some "observations and reflections upon many of them, particularly those of our own nation."