George Herbert Society

Though the great Metaphysical poet George Herbert traveled little—he never left Britain—his poetry has traveled far, and so does the international George Herbert Society. We gather in places important to Herbert’s personal and family relations, and to his extensive cultural legacies. Symposia and conferences have met where Herbert studied, spoke, and ministered, in Cambridge and Salisbury/Bemerton; in Greensboro, North Carolina, home to the GHS and one of the world’s largest rare Herbert collections; Powys, Wales, site of his birth and early childhood and home to his still living relations, the Earls of Powis; and Charleston, South Carolina and Grove City, Pennsylvania, outposts of the widening Atlantic World that Herbert envisioned.

The George Herbert Festival of July 10-13, 2014 drew thousands to Herbert’s home ground in Salisbury; our Fourth Triennial George Herbert Society Conference, October 16-18, 2014 in Phoenix/Tempe Arizona, saw the first presentation of The Chauncey Wood Dissertation Award; October 29-November 1, 2015 saw our return to Herbert’s Welsh childhood haunts for The Marcher Metaphysicals Conference at Gregynog Hall, Tregynon, Mid-Wales; our Fifth Triennial Conference met on May 18-21, 2017, at the Sorbonne in the Latin Quarter of Paris; and, after two COVID delays, our Sixth Triennial Conference returned us to Cambridge University on 23-26 June 2022. Now, we are pleased to announce our Seventh Triennial Conference coming on the left side of the Atlantic to Trinity College of the University of Toronto during 19-22 June 2025, exploring the topic of George Herbert and the Americas–from colonial New England, through Herbert’s reception across the expanding U.S. and Canada, to his place in the imaginations of Francophone and Latin America. Come join us!