John Dryden (1608–1674) The State of Innocence, And Fall of Man: An Opera, 1674.
Despite his firmly-held royalist sympathies, John Dryden was one of Milton’s most influential supporters after the Restoration. Disregarding Milton’s views on rhyme in the epic, Dryden requested Milton’s permission ‘to putt his Paradise-lost into a drama in Rhyme: Mr Milton received him civilly, & told him he would leave to tagge his Verses’ (John Aubrey, ‘Minutes of the Life of Mr. John Milton’). Dryden’s resulting stage adaptation, The State of Innocence and Fall of Man: An Opera, was published in 1674, soon after Milton’s death. Its sales outstripped those of Milton’s poem until the end of the seventeenth century.