THE FIRST EDITION of this Bibliography of Dr John Donne was printed in 1914 at the Cambridge University Press as the second (and last) publication of the Baskerville Club. It was distributed to the thirty-seven members of the Club after the outbreak of the First World War, and I received my copy while serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France. Three hundred copies were printed, most of which were sold by Messrs Bernard Quaritch during succeeding years. The book had been long out of print before the second edition, revised and enlarged, was published in 1932 by the Cambridge University Press. Three hundred and fifty copies were printed on this occasion, and, having met with a steady demand, the book has again been out of print for some years. It is the enduring interest in Donne and his works that has prompted the publication of a third edition of the Bibliography rather than any claim that startling new discoveries have been made since 1932. It will nevertheless be found that there is a substantial amount of new information embodied in the rewritten Bibliographical Prefaces, even though there are but few important additions to the Bibliography proper, the whole of which has been carefully revised. The range of the work has also been extended in other directions, so that the book is considerably larger than before. Some dissatisfaction was expressed with the last edition because the record of copies of early editions was not more complete. Many of the books, however, are not particularly rare, and any attempt to make a census of existing copies would, in my opinion, be both impracticable and unprofitable. Nevertheless the holdings of many more libraries than before have been recorded, covering a variety of institutions in Great Britain and America. Few private collections besides my own have been included, Donne having almost passed out of the sphere of the ordinary collector. My own collection is extensive because I had the advantage of a long start, covering almost half a century, but it seems unlikely that many more additions to it will be made.

It may be questioned whether it is really part of the duties of a bibliographer to deal with the books coming under the heading ‘Biography and Criticism’. In the previous editions an eclectic list was given, but this has seemed to me to be an unsatisfactory compromise.