Scurrilous manuscript that could have undone John Donne discovered

Ostensibly a library catalogue in Latin, poet’s early work is in fact a string of smutty jokes about contemporary figures in febrile years before the gunpowder plot

A manuscript of an early work by John Donne, a scurrilous academic joke which could have cost the poet his reputation if not his head if it had fallen into the wrong hands, has been discovered in a tin trunk full of shreds of ancient documents, in the archives of Westminster Abbey.

The manuscript may be the earliest surviving copy of what is ostensibly a library catalogue in Latin: the numbered book titles are all invented, and Donne’s list is in fact a string of savage and frequently smutty jokes, many about named contemporary figures.

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