**A FINANCIAL TIMES AND INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR**

'A remarkable feat' OBSERVER

'Clever, wide-ranging... witty and sardonic' NEW STATESMAN

A dynamic reappraisal of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, exploring its radical origins in the seventeenth century and its revolutionary impact on our culture ever since.

Drawing on his own experiences of teaching literature in prisons, Orlando Reade focuses on twelve unexpected readers of Milton – from Malcolm X to Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt to Thomas Jefferson – whose lives and works have shaped our world. He shows the many different, surprising and often contradictory ways in which Milton’s poem has been read across centuries and continents.

Boldly original, lively and far-reaching, What in Me Is Dark is the story of how a work of literature born in the ashes of a failed revolution became an indelible part of the modern imagination. Reade guides us through the epic, exploring how Milton came to write its dark and dazzling poetry, and offering a new account of its radical, ever-evolving legacy.

A brilliant close reading of Milton’s verse. Reade possesses a sharp eye for the details of Milton’s verse and his writing crackles with imaginative energy * The Times *
A testament to the enduring power of a great work of literature to inspire. * Financial Times, *Books of the Year* *
[A] thoughtful, wide-ranging and astute book... A remarkable feat of distillation and elucidation… As a response to such a complex and equivocal historical figure [as Milton] neither hagiography nor iconoclasm seems quite adequate, and Reade’s excellent book strikes a difficult and deft balance between the two. * Observer *
Lively and humane, Reade is the friendliest of academics. Like many an English literature undergraduate, he was initially daunted by Paradise Lost…but came to adore it while teaching poetry to prisoners, and he wants you to love it, too… Reade’s enthusiasm and curiosity are winning * Guardian, *Book of the Day* *
Clever, wide-ranging... Reade is an academic, but his book is mercifully unlike most academic works. It is witty and sardonic.... [Reade] is sensitive and shockable. -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * New Statesman *
Eminently readable... Reade includes a wealth of curious detail * The Telegraph *
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
An admirably lucid new book * Independent *
Rare and refreshing... gloriously and uniquely about disobedience – both in human and cosmic terms. * The Spectator *
Fresh and arresting... What in Me is Dark is a lucid and sometimes moving reminder of how Milton’s epic, for all its pre-modern erudition and doctrinal complexity, has continually been given new life by its modern readers. * Literary Review *
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
What in Me is Dark, with its brisk canter over a field as wild and varied as Milton's own masterpiece, will send readers back to the original text with a new sense of its paradoxes, beauties and continuing relevance. * Financial Times *
Few literary works have inspired such disparate interpretations and readings, and Reade makes a convincing case for Paradise Lost’s enduring legacy * Independent, *Books of the Year* *
Wonderfully written, intelligent and moving... 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
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
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
A pulsing reappraisal * Big Issue, *Books of the Year* *
Reade wears his smarts very lightly: the book is a borderline romp… and very funny * Drum, *Summer Reads of 2025* *

Orlando Reade is a writer from London. He studied English at Cambridge and Princeton, where he received his PhD in 2020. He has written about culture and politics for publications including Frieze, the Guardian, and the White Review, where he served as a contributing editor. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at Northeastern University London.