The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton [DELUXE TRADE PAPERBACK] 2001 • NYRB

The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

DELUXE TRADE PAPERBACK [2001] NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

Fat trade paperback in excellent condition.

Book is like new with trace shelf wear to cover.

Small mark on title page.  Otherwise mint. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ostensibly a guidebook to melancholia or depression, Burton's masterpiece is really an all-encompassing examination of the human condition.

The 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 uncategorisable works of all time - can be seen as a tonic for the very condition it describes.