Best Selling Books by John Donne

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, together with Death''s Duel, by John Donne, is a profound collection of meditations and sermons that reflect on the human condition, mortality, and spirituality. Written during a severe illness in 1623, the Devotions are a series of reflections that combine personal anguish with deep theological insights, exploring themes of suffering, divine intervention, and redemption. Death''s Duel, often considered Donne''s final sermon before his death, serves as a poignant and eloquent meditation on the inevitability of death and the promise of eternal life. Together, these works encapsulate Donne''s masterful blending of personal experience with universal spiritual truths, offering readers a timeless contemplation of life, faith, and death.

And now good morrow to our waking soules, Which watch not one another our of feare; For love, all love of other sights controules, And makes one little room, an everywhere. Bloomsbury Poetry Classics are selections from the work of some of our greatest poets. The series is aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist and carries no critical or explanatory apparatus. This can be found elsewhere. In the series the poems introduce themselves, on an uncluttered page and in a format that is both attractive and convenient. The selections have been made by the distinguished poet, critic, and biographer Ian Hamilton.

There may be no finer edition of Donne''s Songs and Sonets than Redpath''s annotated volume. Out of print for a decade, it is reprinted here in its second, revised edition. The book''s twofold origin is evident on every page of commentary: it arises partly from a life of scholarship and partly from Redpath''s experiences as a teacher.

This Modern Library edition contains all of John Donne''s great metaphysical love poetry. Here are such well-known songs and sonnets as "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Extasie," and "A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day," along with the love elegies "Jealosie," "His Parting From Her," and "To His Mistris Going to Bed." Presented as well are Donne''s satires, epigrams, verse letters, and holy sonnets, along with his most ambitious and important poems, the Anniversaries. In addition, there is a generous sampling of Donne''s prose, including many of his private letters; Ignatius His Conclave, a satiric onslaught on the Jesuits; excerpts from Biathanatos, his celebrated defense of suicide; and his most famous sermons, concluding with the final "Death''s Duell." "We have only to read [Donne]," wrote Virginia Woolf, "to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time."

This volume of John Donne''s writings begins with a biography of John Donne''s life, as told by Donne''s writer friend, Izaak Walton. Walton gives readers a close look at Donne''s past, which was plagued with the loss of many close family members. This biographical information helps readers to make better sense of the somber devotions contained in this volume. In his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Donne concentrates on the miserable condition of man and the inevitability of death. The devotions are all structured the same, each beginning with a meditation followed by an expostulation and a prayer. These devotions serve as a preview for Donne''s "Death''s Duel Sermon," written near his death in 1631 as his funeral sermon. While "Death''s Duel" paints a grave picture of earthly life tormented by pain and death, it hopes for a bright future in God''s love through Christ''s resurrection and ascension. -Emmalon Davis, CCEL Staff Writer

Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in his youth, he was raised a Catholic but later became one of the most admired Protestant preachers of his time. The Selected Poems reflects this wide diversity, and includes his youthful Songs and Sonnets, epigrams, elegies, letters, satires, and the profoundly moving Divine Poems composed towards the end of his life. From joyful poems such as ''The Flea'', which transforms the image of a louse into something marvellous, to the intimate and intense Holy Sonnets, Donne breathed new vigour into poetry by drawing lucid and often startling metaphors from the world in which he lived. His poems remain among the most passionate, profound and spiritual in the English language.