Some Anatomies of Melancholy

'These unhappy men are born to misery, past all hope of recovery, incurably sick, the longer they live the worse they are, and death alone must ease them'  Robert Burton

Robert Burton (1577 &ndash; 1640) was an English scholar and vicar at Oxford University, best known for writing The Anatomy of Melancholy.

Not simply an investigation into melancholy, these unique essays form part of a panoramic celebration of human behaviour from the time of the ancients to the Renaissance. God, devils, old age, diet, drunkenness, love and beauty are each given equal consideration in this all-encompassing examination of the human condition. 
 
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves &ndash; and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives &ndash; and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Robert Burton

Angus Gowland

The greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing

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

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 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.

Robert Burton

Praise for The Anatomy of Melancholy

The best book ever written

The greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing

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 th ...

The best book ever written

The greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing

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 th ...

The best book ever written

The greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing

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 th ...

Books by Robert Burton

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