"Based on an exhaustive study of the manuscript and print history of Donne's poetry, this edition presents newly edited critical texts of the poems and a comprehensive digest of the critical-scholarly commentary on them from Donne's time forward. Textual introductions briefly locate the poems in the context of Donne's life or poetic development, outline the 17th-century textual history of the poems, and sketch the treatment of the text by modern editors. A detailed textual apparatus presents variants collated from many sources and traces the lines of textual transmission"--Provided by publisher.

This comprehensive bibliography lists some 500 source texts published in the British Isles or abroad from 1479 to 1660 and more than 2,000 works of secondary literature from 1900 to the present.

Contains list of "Fictitious and pseudonymous names."

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.

Excerpt from The Rhetoric of John Donne's Verse: A Dissertation The third chapter deals with a yet practically untouched aspect of the criticism of English verse; The revelation of Donne's secret came to me suddenly after three years of daily, almost hourly, entreating, caressing, and wheedling of each line of his poetry.1 At first the thing seemed improbable; but, at the same time, it was so real and so plain as to give one that uncanny feeling experienced by those who dare to meddle with the affairs of 'some old lover's ghost.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Praise for previous volumes: "This variorum edition will be the basis of all future Donne scholarship." -- Chronique This is the 4th volume of The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne to appear. This volume presents a newly edited critical text of the Holy Sonnets and a comprehensive digest of the critical-scholarly commentary on them from Donne's time through 1995. The editors identify and print both an earlier and a revised authorial sequence of sonnets, as well as presenting the scribal collection -- which contains unique authorial versions of several of the sonnets -- inscribed by Donne's friend Rowland Woodward in the Westmoreland manuscript.