Robert Burton: The Anatomy of Melancholy (A Selection)

This volume consists of substantial selections from a seventeenth century classic, the prototype of many later anatomies, whose formidable length and complexity are likely to discourage many readers who would enjoy it. Burton's Anatomy (first published in 1621) is basically a treatise on abnormal psychology. It includes a great deal of early psychiatric theory, illustrated by curious case histories. There are a few works, however, of more varied subject matter. The author found a place in his for virtually all subjects which interested him and most subjects did. Demonology, witchcraft, astronomy, geography, patterns of life in foreign lands, law and government, the behaviour of lovers, the advantages of marriage, theology, ethics, religious fanaticism would constitute but a partial list. Burton was a lively stylist, a skillful teller of all tales, an inclusive satirist, and a wise commentator on men and manners. In making his selections, the editor has omitted the anatomical, surgical, and pharmaceutical selections in favour of material that is of more general interest, for example the psychiatry, the spirit lore, the social commentary, the passages on love and lovers. He has tried to retain not only the more essential subject matter of the Anatomy but also the image which it presents of the author: a scholar of wide learning who was proudly conscious of the dignity of scholarship, a tolerant observer with sharply realistic vision, a man of clear understanding whose sympathies were deeply stirred by the spectacle of the follies and self-created miseries of mankind. 

Author 
Robert Burton

Editor
Lawrence Babb

Publisher
Michigan State University Press 

Publication Date
1965

Condition
Used-Good, Ex-Library

Binding
Hardcover

Size
6 x 9.5 inches
380 pages