This book began in the Houghton Library at Harvard, where I spent a year reading Donne in his earliest editions and manu*s.The bulk of the book was written while I was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, where I enjoyed the tremendous generosity and intellectual vitality of this fine institution.I want to thank the excellent librarians at the Houghton and the superb staff of the Wissenchaftskolleg for providing me with the ideal contexts in which to think and write.The invitations to present my work at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the Freie Universit?t and the Humboldt Universit?t in Berlin, the University of Munich, Florida State University, Columbia University, and Harvard University produced many rich exchanges that have enhanced these chapters, and I am grateful to the many people who made these visits possible.I also want to thank Brandeis University for giving me the time and support I needed to finish this book.I am greatly indebted to the many colleagues and friends who helped me bring this project to fruition.Annabel Patterson has been the most loyal and dedicated of mentors: she read the complete manu* with her characteristic rigor and intelligence, and spent hours with me poring over it page by page.Gordon Teskey read each chapter as soon as it was drafted, and pushed me repeatedly to grapple with both minute details and abstract ideas that I would not have come to myself.Michael Schoenfeldt reviewed the manu* in both its early and final formations, and gently but firmly pushed me towards many of my most important revisions.Richard Rambuss helped me initially to formulate the shape of the project when we organized an SAA seminar together on the Renaissance soul, and his unswerving support and advice in the ensuing years have been incredibly important to me.Arthur Marotti generously read several chapters on Donne’s poetry; Peter McCullough was an invaluable resource for my chapter on the sermons; and Jeffrey Knapp provided a strong, final reading of the finished manu*.My mother, Cheri Kamen Targoff, who was my first editor, remains one of my best.I am very grateful to her, and to my father, Michael Targoff, for their continued dedication and generosity.