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.” ...

Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deny'st me is; It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be; Thou knowest that this cannot ...

Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

Christian White, a rare book collector and seller based in West Yorkshire, bought a 1639 edition of John Donne’s poetry at an auction in Oxford for £3,750 in January. Having won the bid, he arranged ...

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead. Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered, swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea ...