This thesis argues that despair was a navigable emotion that was valuable for spiritual development in seventeenth-century England. The two outcomes of this navigation were recovery or suicide. Reaching either outcome required an equally burdensome path that featured solitariness, melancholy, suicidal ideation, and consideration of the individual’s relationship with their community and their worldviews. To convey the dimensions of the stakes of despair and the process of its navigation, this thesis is separated into three chapters. The first chapter outlines the navigation of despair and the cultural, intellectual, and emotional elements of despair in early modern England. The second chapter explores the role of worldviews and religious doctrines and communities for the individual navigation of despair. The final chapter then examines the role of the community in handling suicide along cultural, legal, and emotional lines and in networks of suicide narratives.