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The wider archive · Voices and freedom

Areopagitica

Milton's speech to Parliament against licensing books before they are printed, an early argument for a free press.
  • John Milton (1608–1674)
  • First published 1644
  • Essay
  • Available online · Awaiting physical preservation
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In Minecraft

4 volumes

The whole text, cut into books a Minecraft shelf can hold, at chapter breaks where possible. A volume counts as held once copies are printed and it is on a central library shelf.

  1. Areopagitica 1/4Not printed

    100 pages · no copies printed yet

  2. Areopagitica 2/4Not printed

    100 pages · no copies printed yet

  3. Areopagitica 3/4Not printed

    100 pages · no copies printed yet

  4. Areopagitica 4/4Not printed

    74 pages · no copies printed yet

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Areopagitica 1/4

AREOPAGITICA A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND This is true liberty, when free-born men, Having to advise the public, may speak free, Which he who can, and will, deserves
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Provenance

Where this text came from, and why it is free to share

Source

Published in London without a licence (November 1644).

Transcribed text: ebook 608 at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/608, released there 2006-01-21 (that is the transcription's date, not the book's). Copied 2026-10-30. Its own record says: “Public domain in the USA.”

Checksums (SHA-256): source file 562d50db41ff5a2f4781a71dd7b51e236d1b96a7f462ee1e23b3c69f85b9ee4f; prepared text a766333f9ed92a6417aa08d59c8b4f26c86a049f4704c1e1e52ce7eac9d75a77.

Changes to the text

  • The source's header, licence, footer and production credits were removed.
  • Line breaks inside paragraphs were joined; paragraphs and short-line blocks such as contents lists were kept.
  • Underscores marking italics were removed.
  • Extra spaces were collapsed.
  • No illustrations were imported; captions stay as text.

Rights

  • First published before 1931: public domain in the United States.
  • The author died before 1956: out of copyright where protection lasts the author's life plus 70 years.

Public domain in the United States (first published 1644); the author died in 1674, so also out of copyright where protection lasts the author's life plus 70 years. Not reviewed country by country beyond that.

Text only. The source's licence, trademark and boilerplate are removed, so the archive does not use the source's name as a mark; the source is cited as provenance.

Reviewed 2026-10-30, batch seed-2026-10. Archive editions credit the original author; Aurelune printed them and claims no rights in the text.

Areopagitica by John Milton · Aurelune