Introduction  (one page) 
 
This etext was originally created in 1964-1965 according to Dr. 
Joseph Raben of Queens College, NY, to whom it is attributed by 
Project Gutenberg.  We had heard of this etext for years but it 
was not until 1991 that we actually managed to track it down to 
a specific location, and then it took months to convince people        PL0.5
to let us have a copy, then more months for them actually to do 
the copying and get it to us.  Then another month to convert to 
something we could massage with our favorite 486 in DOS.  After 
that is was only a matter of days to get it into this shape you 
will see below.  The original was, of course, in CAPS only, and        PL0.10
so were all the other etexts of the 60's and early 70's.  Don't 
let anyone fool you into thinking any etext with both upper and 
lower case is an original; all those original Project Gutenberg 
etexts were also in upper case and were translated or rewritten 
many times to get them into their current condition.  They have        PL0.15
been worked on by many people throughout the world. 
 
In the course of our searches for Professor Raben and his etext 
we were never able to determine where copies were or which of a 
variety of editions he may have used as a source.  We did get a 
little information here and there, but even after we received a        PL0.20
copy of the etext we were unwilling to release it without first 
determining that it was in fact Public Domain and finding Raben 
to verify this and get his permission.  Interested enough, in a 
totally unrelated action to our searches for him, the professor 
subscribed to the Project Gutenberg listserver and we happened,        PL0.25
by accident, to notice his name. (We don't really look at every 
subscription request as the computers usually handle them.) The 
etext was then properly identified, copyright analyzed, and the 
current edition prepared. 
 
To give you an estimation of the difference in the original and        PL0.30
what we have today:  the original was probably entered on cards 
commonly known at the time as "IBM cards" (Do Not Fold, Spindle 
or Mutilate) and probably took in excess of 100,000 of them.  A 
single card could hold 80 characters (hence 80 characters is an 
accepted standard for so many computer margins), and the entire        PL0.35
original edition we received in all caps was over 800,000 chars 
in length, including line enumeration, symbols for caps and the 
punctuation marks, etc., since they were not available keyboard 
characters at the time (probably the keyboards operated at baud 
rates of around 113, meaning the typists had to type slowly for        PL0.40
the keyboard to keep up). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paradise Lost