Selected Letters

The 95 letters printed here in there entirety - dating from the late 1590s until a short time before Donne's death - constitute approximately half of his surviving correspondence. Addressed to a variety of recipients, they present the author of some of the most enduringly popular English verse as father, son, husband, friend, suitor, courtier and pastor. Although what the letters reveal of Donne is far from edifying, they corroborate the impression created by his better-known writings that he was one of the most remarkable figures produced by the English Renaissance and that he possessed an extraordinarily subtle and creative intelligence