John Donne

John Donne was born in London in 1572 into a Roman Catholic family at a time when Catholics in England faced fines and persecution. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge and then law at Lincoln's Inn. He sailed with the Earl of Essex on expeditions against Spain and became secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, but in 1601 he secretly married Egerton's niece, Anne More, and was dismissed and briefly imprisoned. For years the couple lived in poverty with a growing family. Donne wrote love poems, satires and religious verse full of bold comparisons and arguments; he is regarded as the chief of the Metaphysical poets. Having joined the Church of England, he was ordained in 1615 at the urging of King James I and became one of the most famous preachers of his age. In 1621 he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral. During a serious illness in 1623 he wrote Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, which contains the line 'No man is an island'. He died in London in 1631.

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Faith: Born to Catholic parents; his mother descended from the family of Sir Thomas More. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) (via Wikisource)