"And Therefore Never Send to Know for Whom the Bell Tolls; It Tolls for Thee."
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. and seuerall steps in my sicknes. Digested into 1. Meditations vpon our humane condition. 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God. 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to him. The second edition.
London: Printed by A.M. for Thomas Jones, 1624.
Full Description:
DONNE, John. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and seuerall steps in my sicknes. Digested into 1. Meditations vpon our humane condition. 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God. 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to him. The second edition. London: Printed by A.M. for Thomas Jones, 1624.
Second edition, printed the same year as the first. Twelvemo (5 1/4 x 3 1/8 inches; 133 x 79 mm). [8], 589, [1, colophon] pp. Bound without initial blank. Title-page and text within ruled borders. Engraved initials and head-and-tail pieces.
Nineteenth-century full speckled calf. Boards tooled in gilt. Spine elaborately stamped in gilt. Brown calf spine-label, lettered in gilt. Board edges gilt, gilt dentelles. All edges dyed red. Marbled endpapers. Armorial bookplates to front and back pastesdowns. Some rubbing to boards and along outer joints. A small repair to fore-edge of title-page and a small worm-hole repair to the following eight leaves, not affecting text. Leaf G3 with a repaired closed tear, just touching a few letters, with no loss. B4 with repair along lower margin, just touching ruled border. O1 with repair along lower margin, touching some text but with no loss. All repairs are professionally done. Previous owner's small neat signature on front free endpaper. Overall a very good copy.
This book (both first and second edition printed in 1624) is the work which introduced two of Donne's most powerful and enduring lines which are found in Meditation 17: "Perchance hee for whom this Bell tolls, may bee so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him. ... No man is an Island, intire of itself; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as it a Promontorie were, as well if a Mannor of they friends, or of thine owne were; Any Mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."
"Upon recovering from a life-threatening illness, Donne in 1623 wrote Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, the most enduring of his prose works. Each of its 23 devotions consists of a meditation, an expostulation, and a prayer, all occasioned by some event in Donne’s illness, such as the arrival of the king’s personal physician or the application of pigeons to draw vapours from Donne’s head. The Devotions correlate Donne’s physical decline with spiritual sickness, until both reach a climax when Donne hears the tolling of a passing bell (16, 17, 18) and questions whether the bell is ringing for him. Like Donne’s poetry, the Devotions are notable for their dramatic immediacy and their numerous Metaphysical conceits, such as the well-known “No man is an Iland,” by which Donne illustrates the unity of all Christians in the mystical body of Christ.} (Britannica).
HBS 69442.
$25,000.
Price: $25,000.00
Item #69442