Herrick represents a particular strand of seventeenth-century poetry that is concerned with toleration, good-humour, conviviality, wit, and grace. Unlike Donne or Milton, his poetry avoids competitive striving for advancement and instead celebrates the virtues of friendship, ecumenism and collaboration. The essays in this collection explores the origins of this attitude in the literary coteries, musical networks and friendships which encouraged his writing and asks to what degree Herrick’s decision to publish his poetry in 1648 - at the end of a Civil War antithetical to his preferred values - should influence our interpretation of it. Individual essays read his work in the context of literary mentors like Ben Jonson, close collaborators like the King’s musician Henry Lawes, the major classical influences of Ovid and Anacreon and contemporaries like Thomas Stanley and Katherine Philips; and offer expert close-readings of his religious verse, love-lyrics, and friendship poems.