In case anyone is interested, the full text of Paradise Lost with helpful annotations is available online at Dartmouth:
https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/pl/intro/text...
It's also on Standard Ebooks, in case one considers the annotations distracting: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-milton/paradise-lost
HN discussing this link in old thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38876560
I know that people spend a lot of time fixating on how to write a good opening line for their books ("It was a dark and stormy night", etc.), but Paradise Lost has I think the most beautiful closing passage of any book (spoilers for The Bible):
They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.