Author Description

This new volume in The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne contains nine sermons preached by Donne as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral between February and June of 1626. It includes six sermons previously undated or not assigned to a venue, providing a more detailed and intensive picture of Donne's preaching career over a short period than previous Donne scholarship has ever provided. For each sermon an authoritative text has been established by freshly collating multiple copies of the seventeenth-century print editions. The introduction describes the institutional and physical context of Donne's cathedral sermons and analyses his style of preaching and doctrinal positions. For the first time, the sermons appear with a full critical apparatus: headnotes to each sermon describe its textual state and supply local historical context and suggestions for further reading, while extensive commentaries trace Donne's use of his sources, translate passages in foreign languages, and gloss important and unfamiliar words.