Paradise Lost by Milton, John and Mirrielees, Edith R. [Annotator] - 1801/1803/1920s: Edith Mirrielees' Personal Copy, With Her Notes as Marginalia

Edith Mirrielees was a renowned and beloved teacher of creative writing at Stanford from 1909 to 1944. Her most famous student was John Steinbeck, but she also influenced such writers as Howard Pease and Allen Drury. Her book Story Writing is a classic in the field of literary education.
The books on offer are her personal copies of English Poems by John Milton, edited by R.C. Browne with additional notes by Henry Bradley. There are two volumes, Volume I dated 1801 and Volume II dated 1803. The text of Paradise Lost is split between the two 16mo volumes, Books I through VI in the first and Books VII to XII in the second.
Professor Mirrielees has annotated the text of Paradise Lost with extensive marginalia, which provides insight into how she read and taught the text to individuals such as Steinbeck, who was influenced by Milton's work when he wrote his lesser known but highly regarded novel In Dubious Battle.
The condition of the books speak to their extensive use by Professor Mirrielees. Covers are worn and Volume I is missing its spine and has a stain on the cover. The marginalia are mainly in pencil, in tiny but readable handwriting.