Note 3 — POEMS
Reading edition
For this discussion an invaluable starting-point is afforded by the edition of 1633, the manuscript group D, H49, Lec, and the manuscript group A18, N, TCC, TCD. Taken together, and used to check one another, these three collections provide us with a corpus of indubitable poems which may be used as a test by which to try other claimants. Of course, it must be clearly understood that the only proof which can be offered that Donne is the author of many poems is, that they are ascribed to him in edition after edition and manuscript after manuscript, and that they bear a strong family resemblance. There is no edition issued by himself or in his lifetime.3