The John Donne Collection
Cushing Library possesses a remarkable collection of books by and related to the notable seventeenth-century metaphysical poet. In fact, the library can claim a noteworthy place among the world’s repositories of primary Donne editions and contemporaneous background materials. The collection’s existence is indebted to Professors Gary Stringer and Paul Parrish. Stringer is the founder and General Editor of The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne as well as the co-founder of the John Donne Society of America. Parrish, a Donne scholar, is also an editor on the Donne Variorum project.
Sample highlights of the collection:
Poems, by J. D. London: M. Fletcher for John Marriot, 1633. This first edition of Donne’s collected poems was published two years after his death.
“The Printer to the Understanders.” From Poems, by J. D. This rare unbound preface was written by Miles Fletcher and added to some copies of the first edition of Donne’s poems, probably as an afterthought.
Pseudo-Martyr. London: W. Stansby for Walter Burre, 1610. The first edition of Donne’s first publication.
Letters to Severall Persons of Honour. London: J. Flesher, 1654. The second issue of this title, joining the true first in the collection, was owned and heavily annotated by two notable Donne scholars, Rev. T. R. O’Flahertie and I. A. Shapiro.
[image collections: Poems, 1650 (frontispiece portrait); Letters 1654; Sermons 1640]
[Link to online exhibit page / pdf of catalog]