No Man is an Island

This selection gathers prose by John Donne from across his career: early Paradoxes and Problems that argue in jest about women, laughter, and inconstancy; passages from Biathanatos, his casuistical discussion of suicide; the Devotions written during a grave illness, including the meditation on the passing bell that no man is an island; and extracts from later sermons as Dean of St Paul's. The pieces move from witty paradox to sickness, death, and communal obligation. The volume is a reader of seventeenth-century religious and secular prose, not a collection of the love poems.

18 leaves of reproductions of monochrome contemporary prints and documents. Cream vegetable parchment binding, cover printed letterpress with an extract by Donne. Purple endleaves with a repeat pattern of Monotype ornaments. Purple slipcase decorated as the endleaves.