‘Only in Obedience’ to Whom? – The Identity of a Donne Correspondent

This paper is part of a Literature Compass panel cluster on the forthcoming Oxford edition of Donne's letters. Margaret Maurer introduces the cluster which offers papers by the three editors and seeks to examine the new directions the edition will pursue. The papers were originally delivered to the members of the John Donne Society in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in February 2008. The cluster is made up of the following articles: ‘The Oxford Edition of Donne's Letters: Well Underway’, Margaret Maurer, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00598.x . ‘“Apparitions, and Ghosts”: H(a)unting Donne's Letters’, M. Thomas Hester, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00599.x . ‘“Only in Obedience” to Whom? – The Identity of a Donne Correspondent’, Dennis Flynn, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00600.x . ‘Problems in Editing John Donne's Letters: Unreliable Primary Materials’, Ernest W. Sullivan, II, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00601.x . *** Work on the Oxford edition so far confirms that fifteen of the letters transcribed in the Burley manuscript are Donne's; most of their addressees have been established, and most of them have been dated within a period of about five years, in the late 1590s and early 1600s. In particular, this essay discusses the letter beginning ‘Only in obedience I send you my Paradoxes’– long thought to have been addressed by Donne to Henry Wotton. Though the matter has long been controverted, various evidence now suggests that this letter was instead addressed to Sir Henry Goodere.