a selection of early poems by John Donne
with woodcut images by Robert Macdonald
2004
80 pp
320 x 250 mm
Main edition: 190 copies numbered and signed by the artist.
ISBN: 0 907664 65 2 £175

Special edition: 26 copies lettered and signed by the artist
ISBN: 0 907 664 64 4 £450

The poems are taken from Songs and Sonnets and Elegies, the earliest writings of John Donne (1572-1631). This love poetry is intense, rhetorical and energetic . . . using paradox and pun, intellect and passion, written by a young man delighting in life.It includes lines which have become so much part of our language that we sometimes forget that they were written by Donne:
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtaines call on us? . . .
and
Goe, and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot, . . .
and
O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man'd,
My Myne of precious stones, My Emperie,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!

He later took holy orders and wrote religious and devotional poems and powerful sermons as Dean of St Paul's.

Robert Macdonald's woodcut images are equally strong, immediate and passionate, sharing the poet's delightfully down to earth approach to sexuality both physical and emotional.

The paper is 200gsm Vélin Arches, the type is Justin Howes' Founders' Caslon. The 25 woodcuts are printed from the wood. Copies were bound at The Fine Bindery, blue quarter-leather with sides covered in rich purple papers, with images from the book printed in silver at The Old Stile Press.

For each of the 26 copies that constitute the special edition (lettered A-Z and signed by the artist) Robert Macdonald has made an original painting to fit within the book. Also, in a separate folder are housed signed impressions of three of the full-page woodcuts from the book together with an impression of an extra block specially cut for this edition. All this is enclosed in a solander box.