Donne, John

Manuscript of the poem in the hand of Nathaniel Rich, 38 lines, corrections to two lines, 1 page, folio (305 x 190 mm), integral blank, docketed in a different hand ("Good Friday"); dampstained.
[with:] Three other documents: autograph letter signed by Nathaniel Rich, to "Mr Pheasant," on business affairs, one page, n.d.; draft letter to "Sweet Madam", one page, docketed on the integral blank, 30 July, n.y.; notes on legal history, one page; dampstained.
Housed together in a red silk folder and red morocco gilt folding-box by Sangorski and Sutcliffe.

Nathaniel Rich — Probably gifted to his executor Edward Montagu, Viscount Mandeville and later 2nd Earl of Manchester, 1602-1671, thence by descent within the Montagu family, Earls and later Dukes of Manchester. acquisition: Bernard Quaritch, 1985

CELM DnJ 1431; Margaret Maurer and Dennis Flynn, "The Text of Good Friday and John Donne's Itinerary in April 1613", Textual Cultures, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2013), pp.50-94

A fascinating early scribal copy of Donne's great religious meditation. This manuscript has attracted interest since its discovery in the mid-1970s. It provides a text that is substantially different from that most commonly found in the manuscript tradition of the poem, and is in the hand of Nathaniel Rich (for whom see lot 698), who was associated with Donne around 1613, when the poem was written. It has been argued, most thoroughly by Maurer and Flynn, that this manuscript represents an early version of the poem before it reaches its final form.

This manuscript is one of two transcribed by Rich (the other is now at Princeton), and it gives a distinctive 38-line version of the poem, which usually has 42 lines. The four lines missing here do not leave any obvious lacunae and the poem as it stands has a coherent argument, suggesting that this could be a version of the text that precedes the later addition by Donne of these lines. Furthermore, commentators have suggested that several of the variant readings in this manuscript (such as "Scoure off my rust" rather than "Burne off my rusts") may be authorial rather than scribal. Donne probably wrote this poem on his way to Montgomery Castle in Wales, but this poem locates him as riding towards Exeter in Devon, which has been cited as a reason to distrust this manuscript. However, Maurer and Flynn's study of stage-post routes in Jacobean England show that Donne could easily have ridden towards Exeter on his way to Montgomeryshire. There are therefore good arguments that suggest this is a unique early version of Donne's poem.