The Anatomy of Melancholy

Author: Robert Burton and Angus Gowland

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A guidebook to melancholia or depression, and a masterly, all-encompassing examination of the human condition

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PRODUCT INFORMATION

Summary

A guidebook to melancholia or depression, and a masterly, all-encompassing examination of the human condition

Description

A guidebook to melancholia or depression, and a masterly, all-encompassing examination of the human conditionThe Anatomy of Melancholy is the vast and only work by Robert Burton, the seventeenth-century English priest and scholar. It 'opens and cuts up' the condition of melancholy, or depression, as we know it today, and in doing so explores a dizzying range of additional topics, including goblins, beauty, the geography of America, digestion, the passions, alcohol and kissing. Burton believed that reading was a cure for melancholy, and so the book itself - one of the most unique and uncategorizable works of all time - can be seen as a tonic for the very condition it describes.

Critic Reviews

“The best book ever written--Nick Lezard, Guardian”

The best book ever written -- Nick Lezard Guardian
The greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing -- Llewelyn Powys
Burton's masterpiece. It is one of the finest prose works in English . . . it is funny, a laugh-aloud book, one that seems to convey the character of its writer with a rare clarity. It is an ode to reading that overflows with allusions and quotations, making it a book that feels, at times, as if it is about the whole of human knowledge. In its wonderfully capacious digressiveness, it pulsates with a life force that is, in itself, a charm against the terrors, the fears and the loneliness of melancholy The Guardian
This is the best popular edition ever produced of one of the most amusing books in our language, a masterpiece of scholarship. It belongs on the shelves of everyone who loves English literature and all those who aspire to do so The Critic

About the Author

Robert Burton (1577-1640) spent most of his life in Oxford, first as a student and later as a scholar. His most famous work, the enormous Anatomy of Melancholy, was first published in 1621 and expanded in further editions throughout Burton's life.Angus Gowland is a Reader in Intellectual History at University College London.