My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Farrar Straus and Giroux for an advanced copy of this biography on a poet who was ahead of his times.

The name John Doone will be familiar to people either from that one class in college, Intro to British Writings, or as fans of poetry, possibly even for his sermons, that so many people used to crowd around to hear that listeners could be injured or killed from being crushed. Donne was much more than a poet or the metaphysical movement, he was a scholar, a loving husband, a father to a large brood, a navy man, and a cleric. Donne's writings include satires, poems, sermons, and a work on suicide that he hid for his entire life, worried at the reaction people would have. All these sides to the man are covered in Super- Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by author and scholar Katherine Rundell, a dazzling book that is scholarly, humorous and revealing about this enthralling man.

John Donne was born into a family of Catholics in a time when Catholics were not popular or safe, but whose faith was one they would not renounce, in either 1571 or 1572. Elizabeth I was Queen in a country that was facing many momentous events. Donne's father passed away when Donne was age 4, leaving his mother alone with 6 children, something that became easier with her marriage to another widower with 3 children and wealth. Donne attended private school and attended Cambridge with his brother, giving him a very full education, but left without a degree, due to his Catholic faith. He spent time as a sailor until landing a job as a secretary where he met his wife, whose marriage without Ann, or Anne's father's blessing soon got him fired and gave the newlyweds much grief in their early years. At the same time he was writing, satires, small plays, and poems that were earthy and of the now, filled with images and thoughts of plague, body functions and sex. These poems later gave him problems with employment, but soon a change in faith led to a better life for Donne.

One of the most different and interesting biographies I have read in quite a while. A book that you can tell the author enjoys writing, reading and spending time writing and sharing the poet's life with us. There is a a spring to Rundell's writing that is usually missing in most nonfiction books. The book is filled with asides, and snide comments, not mean but more reflective of what one would think Donne would write in his many letters that have been lost to us. Donne's life is covered in full, his poetry, his religion and conversion, and the love of his life Ann, and her sacrifices for falling in love with a poet and a secretary, the life she could have had as chosen by her father for her. Rundell talks of both Donne's melancholy, is writing about suicide and death, and things that weren't very nice, which Rundell is quick to point out and discuss. A book where you learn far more than you thought you would, and enjoy even more that expected. Do expect to do a little outside reading of Donne's works, I picked up the Norton collection of Donne's works about a quarter of the way through the book and it was quite helpful. Your bookseller appreciate the sale also.

This is the first book that I have read by Katherine Rundell either fiction or nonfiction, and I enjoyed it immensely. The way the writer has of turning a phrase, of making the dullest subjects intriguing and worth remembering. Rundell is a very gifted author and I look forward to reading more by her. Recommended for fans of poetry, creative types and those who enjoy a study on the life of fascinating people.

I knew a subject such as John Donne would be fascinating but Katherine Rundell's prose made it even more of a pleasure. It's hard to imagine how crazy that time was to live in: you could be killed for harboring a Catholic priest, 70% of people who got the plague died of it, and the mercurial nature of an absolute monarch couldn't fail to have informed the adult he became. No wonder he is the poet of sex, death and love. The author's choice of examples from his work to illustrate her ideas about him only make me want to read more by Donne. It's always a pleasure to read early/modern English (especially with an informed assist!).

I couldn’t say what prompted me to read a biography of John Donne — in my mind he was frozen as the stern elder preacher who would chillingly warn down the length of a gnarled and bony finger "it tolls for thee" — so I am delighted to have so enjoyed Katherine Rundell’s Super-Infinite, reminding me that even those dusty old poets, forever frozen in woodcut portraits on foxed anthologies’ frontispieces, were once young and striving and pulsing with life. As Rundell reports, there is only the sketchiest of biographical information available on Donne, but with an exuberant and colourful writing style, she brings his world alive and makes the case that not only was Donne one of the greatest innovators of the English language in his day, but that he arguably remains the greatest writer of desire in English of all time. With such big claims satisfyingly supported, I was entertained and educated throughout; delighted after all to have taken this plunge on Donne.

Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing.
In his myriad lives he was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, an MP - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. Along the way he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year old 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 misery, yet expressed in his verse many breathtaking impressions of electric joy and love.

This book by Katherine Rundell oozes the great love and admiration she has for this enthralling book on the life of John Donne, As a graduate of English, I had only touched on this poet in my studies and I am sorry for this. Rundell writes with true passion on her subject and it is infectious. Her narrative flows along and her use of his poems are well placed throughout. I recommend this particularly to English students but interested lay people will also gain from this book. My thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and the Author for an ARC of Super-Infinite. Well worth the read.

Katherine Rundell's "Super-Infinite" tracks the life of that most metaphysical of English poets, John Donne. An academic text as much as one for lay readers, it tracks his life from childhood to death, with trips to prison, court, and St Pauls in between. I personally would have appreciated more intertwining of the text, but Rundell does admirably with the verses she does choose to reflect upon a time or place. Donne remains as vibrant, as divinely human today as he was then.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for review.