Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

John Donne fell gravely ill in November 1623. During his convalescence he wrote the twenty-three Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions — short triadic meditations, each examining one moment of his sickness in three movements: a Meditation, an Expostulation, and a Prayer. The book contains some of the most famous prose in the English language — Devotion XVII, with the image of mankind as part of a single continent, and the bell that tolls for every one of us.

This volume also includes Death's Duel — the last sermon Donne preached, in the presence of King Charles I, just over a month before his death. The edition opens with Izaak Walton's brief Life of Donne, then the twenty-three Devotions in their original order, and closes with Death's Duel.