Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne - Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2022 - Hardcover

Rundell, Katherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571345913 ISBN 13: 9780571345915

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2022

Synopsis

** A Sunday Times bestseller **
** A Guardian, Spectator, TLS, New Statesman, Daily Mail, Prospect and Telegraph Book of the Year**

'Every page sparkles.' Claire Tomalin
'Crackling with gusto and sympathetic intelligence' Andrew Motion
'A triumph.' Matt Haig
'A wonderful, joyous piece of work.' Maggie O'Farrell
'Blazingly intelligent and witty' Telegraph
'Frankly brilliant' Sunday Times

From a standout scholar, a sparkling and very modern biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death.

John Donne lived myriad lives.

Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a high-born girl without her father's consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from black surges of sadness, yet expressed in his verse electric joy and love.

About this title

About the Author

Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. Rundell is also the author of a book for adults, Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, and writes occasionally for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times.

From the Back Cover

** A Sunday Times bestseller **
** A Spectator, TLS, New Statesman and Telegraph Book of the Year**

'Every page sparkles.' Claire Tomalin
'Crackling with gusto and sympathetic intelligence' Andrew Motion
'A triumph.' Matt Haig
'A wonderful, joyous piece of work.' Maggie O'Farrell

'Blazingly intelligent and witty' Telegraph
'Frankly brilliant' Sunday Times

John Donne lived myriad lives.

Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a high-born girl without her father's consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from black surges of sadness, yet expressed in his verse electric joy and love.

*

From a standout scholar, a biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death. In Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell embarks on a fleet-footed 'act of evangelism', showing us the many sides of Donne's extraordinary life, his obsessions, his blazing words, and his tempestuous Elizabethan times - unveiling Donne as the most remarkable mind and as a lesson in living.

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571345913
• ISBN 13: 9780571345915
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352