
The large number of surviving handwritten copies of his work shows that it was eagerly shared by connoisseurs, and the first printed editions appeared soon after his death, in 1631.


A courtier and priest who was born in 1572 and lived in London at the same time as Shakespeare, Donne was highly regarded as a poet in his lifetime, even though he never published a book of poems. One way to chart the development of English poetry over the past four hundred years is to look at the fluctuating reputation of John Donne.
