It is hard not to like Satan. He is Western culture’s original rebel, the bad boy who dared to defy the authority of God. He also has the best lines. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n,” ...

On winter nights in the early sixteen-sixties, a blind poet lay awake in his bed and dreamed of the universe. Before his eyes swam suns and stars. A celestial light, visible to him alone, revealed a ...