Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

In late 1623 John Donne fell ill during a London outbreak of spotted or relapsing fever, and in December, while recovering, he set it down in prose. The result is twenty-three sections, matching the days of the illness, moving from the first symptoms through the doctors’ consultations and the tolling of a nearby funeral bell to the fear of relapse. Each is built in three parts: a meditation on the human condition, an expostulation that argues with God, and a prayer. Meditation 17 gave English two of its most quoted lines, “No man is an island” and “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” This edition also carries Death’s Duel, the sermon Donne preached five weeks before his own death in 1631. Sickness has rarely been watched this closely, or written this well.