John Donne
London, 1644
 
First edition, first issue, with the "Authors cited in this booke” leaves and undated title page. Contemporary full calf with the initial blank (generally found missing), an old well-done rebacking, hinges heavily rubbed, title page browned, the other pages browned primarily at the margins. All in all a Very Good, complete copy. University of Cambridge bookplate on title page verso.
 
Donne’s complex work on suicide written during troubled times that he never wanted published – a desire unheeded by his son after his death.
 
'Biathanatos was written during a lengthy period of unemployment, during which Donne suffered from low spirits. In 1608, around the time that Biathanatos was originally composed, Donne wrote to his friend Henry Goodyer, "Every Tuesday I make account that I turn a great hourglass, and consider that a week’s life is run out since I writ. But if I ask myself what I have done in the last watch, or would do in the next, I can say nothing." Although John Sym’s Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing (London, 1637) was published earlier, Biathanatos was the first book written in the Western tradition on the subject of suicide.' (Cardiff)