The most important fact to keep in mind when considering the texts of John Donne's writings is that Donne preferred manuscript circulation to print publication for both his prose and his poetry, and that preference has significant consequences for the study of his texts. Although printing was introduced into England in 1475, it did not immediately triumph over scribal publication. Indeed, for more than two hundred years after the introduction of printed books intended for mass circulation, many writers continued to publish primarily via manuscript copies of their works sent to selected audiences. Moreover, during the early modern period, manuscript publication was not a peripheral phenomenon or an inferior form of transmission, but was important in the commerce of disseminating texts and was considered by many - including John Donne - to be superior to print. His choice of manuscript publication makes a crucial difference in the way a reader should view Donne's texts.

Unlike his friend and almost exact contemporary Ben Jonson, who collected and oversaw the printing of his Workes (1616), John Donne scorned print publication and avoided it as much as possible. Nearly all of the few works of his that were printed in his lifetime were committed to the press at the urging of friends or in obedience to the king or a noble patron, and of those few that were printed several were issued anonymously. Donne considered the offering of his poetry and prose to the masses under his name a violation of his dignity and gravity as a gentleman and found the idea of being considered a professional writer offensive. As he wrote to his friend Henry Goodyer in 1609, Donne sought to pursue ‘‘a graver course, then of a Poet, into which (that I may also keep my dignity) I would not seem to relapse’’ (Letters , p. 103).