Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Edited by John Sparrow, With a Bibliographical Note by Geoffrey Keynes

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Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions is a collection of meditations and prayers by John Donne, published in 1624, arising from sermons he delivered during a serious illness. The work comprises 23 sections, each reflecting a different day of Donne's health struggles. Each section starts with a meditation on life, death, and spirituality, followed by a prayer. Donne delves into themes like suffering, the body-soul relationship, and faith during crises. The introspective and personal tone reveals his reflections on mortality and life's meaning. This work is regarded as one of Donne's significant contributions, offering profound insights into Christian spirituality and the human experience. It has notably influenced writers like T.S. Eliot, who referenced it in "The Waste Land." Donne contemplates the fragility of life, questioning how something as insubstantial as vapor can bring death, contrasting it with the more traditional perils of life. He suggests that to complain against Nature, God's agent, is a form of atheism. This antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original, preserving its cultural importance while making it accessible in high-quality, modern editions that remain true to the original text.