Mr. Hazlitt (Handbook) states that pages 95 to 98 of this edition, containing Elegies XIX. and XX., were suppressed. All the editions contain, as well as the poems, thirteen prose letters, of which eight are to Sir Henry Goodyere, one to La[dy] G[oodyere?], one to the Countess of Bedford, and three to Mr. G[eorge] G[arrard].
The book evidently underwent considerable revision in 1635, 1650, and again in 1669. Not only were additional poems printed from time to time, but also there exists great divergence of reading between the various copies. Even the editions of 1639 and 1654, though they differ very slightly from those of 1635 and 1650 respectively, cannot be said to be altogether identical with them. These variations, which are especially noticeable in the Songs and Sonnets and in the Satires, are not merely due to the printers. In all probability most of Donne’s poems existed in several more or less revised forms, and it was something a matter of chance which form was used for printing a particular edition. Nor can it be said that any one edition always gives the best text; even for a single poem, sometimes one, sometimes another is to be preferred, though, as a rule, the edition of 1633 is the most reliable, and the readings of 1669 are in many cases a return to it.
Certain unpublished poems of Donne’s, together with others which are not really his, were collected by Waldron in his Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry (1802), and by Sir John Simeon in one of the Philobiblon Society’s tracts (1856). A few others may be gathered from various printed and manuscript sources. These will be found in the appendices to this edition. The eighteenth-century and modern editions are mostly of little value. That by Dr. Grosart, privately printed in the Fuller Worthies Library, 1873, is a work of much zeal, industry and learning. I have derived benefit from it in many ways. But in contains many inaccuracies, and the text is spoilt throughout by being taken from bad MSS. instead of from the printed copies.
