The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review of Books Classics Series)

by Robert Burton, William H. Gass (Introduction), Holbrook Jackson (Editor)

Overview

One of the major documents of modern European civilization, Robert Burton's astounding compendium, a survey of melancholy in all its myriad forms, has invited nothing but superlatives since its publication in the seventeenth century. Lewellyn Powys called it "the greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing," while the celebrated surgeon William Osler declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and elegant new edition, Burton's spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert today's readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780940322660
Publisher:	New York Review Books
Publication date:	04/28/2001
Series:	NYRB Classics Series
Pages:	1424
Sales rank:	87,905
Product dimensions:	4.94(w) x 7.99(h) x 2.41(d)

About the Author

Robert Burton (1577-1640) was elected a student of Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1599 and took his B.D. in 1614. He served as a vicar in Oxford and then as the rector of Seagrave. The Anatomy of Melancholy appeared in five editions during the author’s lifetime and has been reprinted countless times since.

William H. Gass (b. 1924) is an essayist, novelist, and literary critic. He grew up in Ohio and is a former professor of philosophy at Washington University. Among his books are six works of fiction and nine books of nonfiction, including On Being Blue (1976; published as an NYRB Classic), Tests of Time (2002), A Temple of Texts (2006), and Life Sentences (2012). Gass lives with his wife, the architect Mary Gass, in St. Louis.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
	Introduction to the 1932 Edition	xvii
	Note on the Text	xxx
	The Anatomy of Melancholy
	Democritus Junior to His Book	3
	The Argument of the Frontispiece	7
	The Author's Abstract of Melancholy	11
	Democritus Junior to the Reader	15
	To the Reader who Employs His Leisure Ill	124
	The First Partition
	The Synopsis of the First Partition	126
Section 1.	Of Diseases in General, and of Melancholy; with a Digression of Anatomy	130
Section 2.	Causes of Melancholy; with a Digression of Spirits	177
Section 3.	Symptoms of Melancholy	382
Section 4.	Prognostics of Melancholy	429
	Notes	441
	The Second Partition
	The Synopsis of the Second Partition	1
Section 1.	Cure of Melancholy in General	5
Section 2.	Diet, etc., Rectified; with a Digression of Air	21
Section 3.	A Digression of Remedies against Discontents	126
Section 4.	Medicinal and Chirurgical Remedies	207
Section 5.	Particular Cures	235
	Notes	262
	The Third Partition
	The Synopsis of the Third Partition	1
Section 1.	Love and Its Objects	3
Section 2.	Love-Melancholy	40
Section 3.	Jealousy	257
Section 4.	Religious Melancholy	311
	Notes	433
	Glossary	505
	Index	521

What People are Saying About This

Angus Fletcher

One of the maddest and most perfectly paranoid, obsessively organized, etceterative assaults on the feeble human powers of concentration ever attempted.

Anthony Burgess

All I can say is that most modern books weary me, but Burton never does... His writing is like talk, learned but earthy, and once he starts, he is hard to stop... That he was a humorist in our sense of the word we need no biographical facts to attest: The Anatomy of Melancholy is, by a magnificent and somehow very English irony, one of the great comic works of the world.

Editorial Reviews

Paperback not so much of the week as of the year, of the decade - or, I am inclined to say, of all time. And why? Because it's the best book ever written, that's why. I use the word "book" with care. It's not a novel, a tract, an epic poem, a history; it is, quite self-consciously, the book to end all books.... And not only that, but it's useful: it makes you less melancholy. So buy it now.
—The Guardian (London)

Nicholas Lezard

This work is cited in Books for College Libraries, 3d ed.. It is one of the major documents of modern European civilization, a survey not only of melancholy in all its myriad forms, but also of humanity's endless efforts to assuage it. First published in 1621, the book was an immediate popular success. The New York Review Books edition was edited by Holbrook Jackson in 1932. This new edition contains a new introduction by William Gass, director of the International Writer's Center. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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