CRISTINA MALCOLMSON is Professor of English at Bates College in the USA and has taught at Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley. She has published Heart-Work: George Herbert and the Protestant Ethic, edited Renaissance Poetry, and co-edited with Professor Mihoko Suzuki Palgrave Macmillan's Debating Gender in Early Modern England, 1500-1700.

...[a] lucid and learned biography... [a] challenging, iconoclastic representation of the poet as an active, interested and morally flawed participant in ecclesiastical machinations and political intrigue. - David Hawkes, The Times Literary Supplement

• Acknowledgements Preface and Suggestions for Further Reading Chronology of Herbert's Life Contextual Dates The Sidney-Herbert Coterie Cambridge and University Works 1624 and The Temple 1627 and Herbert's Mother The Temple : Lyrics on Grace, Employment and the Priesthood Afterword: The Country Parson Notes Index