It’s hard not to sympathize with anyone who takes on the task of writing a biography of John Donne. His was a rich and varied life, driven by a mixture of ambition, restlessness, occasional penury, and an unusual abundance of talent. He was, at various times, a lawyer, diplomat, parliamentarian, adventurer, clergyman, and, of course, one of the greatest poets of the English language. If his prodigious talents were not enough to intimidate would-be biographers, you might think the lack of original sources might be a deterrent. It’s quite remarkable how little is known about a man who, by the end of his life, was something of a celebrity in the worlds of church and state at the beginning of 18th century England.

Any great biographer has to be more than a serious historian. Imagination needs to be married to scholarship, and in that regard Donne is very well served by Katherine Rundell. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne is a superb piece of work, and richly deserves all the accolades and awards heaped on it. In this account, Donne the man comes alive in all his contradictions and brilliance. “He was a man constantly transforming. He was a one-man procession: John Donne the persecuted, the rake, the lawyer, the bereaved, the lover, the jailbird, the desperate, the striver, the pious”.

It might be argued that the truest sign of a great literary biography is that it drives the reader back to Donne’s own work. I am not convinced. Much of Donne’s prose work, all those sermons, letters, and devotional writings, are far beyond even a well-read general reader today. The poetry is a different matter. I suspect Rundell’s brilliant advocacy for Donne will encourage many to re-visit or read for the first time those extraordinary love poems.