John Donne’s reply to Marlowe, perhaps written to amuse fellow residents at the Inns of Court, where he was once Master of the Revels, also reads a bit like satire. “Come live with me, and be my love, ...

In her “thrilling reassessment of Donne’s oddly hinged career”, Katherine Rundell argues that the transformation was less unlikely than it seems. Donne’s poetry often involved the “yoking together of ...

Katherine Rundell’s engaging and playful biography of the metaphysical poet demands – and rewards – your attention “Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging.” Ben Jonson’s stern judgment on ...

His life was blighted by poverty, but his poetry made exhilarating connections between sex, faith and death. By Rowan Williams The last thing that keeps contemporary Anglican preachers awake at night ...

Finally a biography of John Donne that captures his eccentricities, his contradictions, his fabulous twists and turns, his trickiness, and—as one critic has put it—his thinking “awry and squint.” ...