John Donne's Marriage Letters in the Folger Shakespeare Library

This is a complete facsimile edition of fourteen autograph letters of John Donne that are among the greatest treasures of the Folger Library. The letters, dating from February and March 1602, relate to Donne's clandestine marriage to Anne More and are addressed to his father-in-law, Sir George More, and to Sir Thomas Egerton, the lord keeper, who was also Donne's employer.

The text of a letter provides one part of the story, while its very tangibility -- the ancient folds, the grime and fingerprints deposited by the writer, deliverer, and readers, the broken seals, the ink blots, the idosyncratic spelling, the location of a signature -- tells another. An understanding of a letter's written and unwritten social signals brings into focus a fuller, grittier, and a clearer view of life in 17th century England.

John Donne's Marriage Letters was recognized in the AIGA "50 books/50 Covers" competition as one of 100 examples of outstanding book and book cover design produced in 2005.

M. Thomas Hester is professor of English at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Robert Parker Sorlien is professor emeritus of English at the University of Rhode Island. Dennis Flynn is professor of English at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

A Note on Transcriptions, Reproductions, and Donne's Heraldic Seals

Transcriptions

John Donne to Sir George More, February 2, 1602

John Donne to Sir George More, February 11, 1602

John Donne to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, February 12, 1602

John Donne to Sir George More, February 13, 1602

John Donne to Lord Keeper Thomas Egerton, February 13, 1602

John Donne to Lord Keeper Thomas Egerton, February [ca. 15], 1602

Christopher Brooke to Lord Keeper Thomas Egerton, February 25, 1602

John Donne to Sir George More, March 1, 1602

John Donne to Lord Keeper Thomas Egerton, March 1, 1602

Decree of Richard Swale, LL.D., Court of Audience, Canterbury, April 27, 1602

John Donne's Receipt for £100 from Lord Keeper Thomas Egerton, July 6, 1602

John Donne to Sir Robert More, February 7, 1612

John Donne to Sir Robert More, July 28, 1614

John Donne to Sir Robert More, August 10, 1614

John Donne to Sir George More, December 3, 1614

John Donne's Epitaph for Anne Donne, August 15, 1617

John Donne to Sir Henry Wotten, July 12, 1925

John Donne to Sir George More, June 22, 1629

Reproductions of the Documents

Curator's Afterword