The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Robert Burton (Author), William H. Gass (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: April 30, 2001

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This edition retains the original Latin, while providing bracketed English translations.

About the Author

ROBERT BURTON (1577–1640) was born in Leicestershire and educated at Oxford, where he became librarian of Christ’s Church College, a position he held for life. He was also the vicar of St. Thomas, Oxford, and the rector of Seabrave, Leicestershire. The first edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy appeared in 1621 and was an immediate popular success. Burton continued to revise and add to his great book, which went through a further five editions, until his death.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1382 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics; 1 edition (April 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940322668
• ISBN-13: 978-0940322660
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 2.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

156 of 158 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely the Best Book Ever Written...Bar None, February 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

First of all, one has a very difficult problem in defining exactly what this compendium is. Is it a book, a poem, a history, an epic? Well, I think it is all of those and many more. The Anatomy of Melancholy is, without a doubt, the best book ever written, bar none.

It was compliled from all the books of the 17th century and is not really about melancholy, per se. It is, rather, Robert Burton's view of mankind and mankind's condition. All mankind. And all conditions. It is about melancholia, sure, but it is about everything else as well. Melancholia was just Burton's excuse to write about everything under the sun in a strikingly original way and then have the nerve to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun. This is a book filled with both endless quotes and endless quotable material and, to the surprise of many, it is a comic masterpiece. Perhaps "the" comic masterpiece. Burton chose to publish this book as having been written by "Democritus Junior," and if that doesn't give you a hint regarding the humor that follows, then not much will.

If you like good literature, you'll love this book. If you like psychology, you'll love this book. If you want to seem pretentious, you need this book. Mostly, however, this is a book for people who love words. Burton may have seemed like a raving madman to some, but he was a man obsessed with a love for the English language...and it shows.

The Anatomy of Melancholy wasn't meant to be read from the first page to the last; I have never met anyone who did that and one would have to be more than a little mad to even try. Just pick up the book. Open it to any page. You may find lists, digressions, bits of 17th century prose, quotes, much Latin. Whatever you find, it is sure to please if you only give it half a chance.

The Anatomy of Melancholy is definitely "the" desert island book. The only problem with taking this wonderful book to a desert island with you (or anywhere else, for that matter), is its size. If you have the one-volume edition, as I do, it can be terribly unwieldy. I once tried reading it on a trans-Atlantic flight and had difficulty keeping my grasp...physically. I highly recommend the three-volume set, if you can find it. If not, make do with the one-volume. Just don't go without. That would be a terrible mistake.

Be warned: this dense and brilliant book is extremely addicting. Once you start leafing through the pages and writing down your favorite passages, you'll find you never want to be without the book. And, as you'll come to see, that won't be such a bad thing at all.

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No booklover should skip this one -- in its best edition., April 26, 2001

By 

R. B. Bernstein "R. B. Bernstein, Adjunct Pro... (Brooklyn, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Of all the editions of THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY that have ever been published, this may be the best for the general reader. The NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS CLASSIC edition wisely reprints the great 1932 Everyman's Library edition, with its wonderful introduction by the noted bookman Holbrook Jackson. (Readers are advised to skim or skip the rather pretentious new introduction by William H. Gass.)

Unlike the "all-English" edition referenced..., the Everyman/NYRBClassic edition gives the Latin tags as Burton scattered them through his work and translates each and every one, either in brackets immediately afterward, or (sometimes) in an endnote to each of the three volumes (now bound as one). I've tried to read the "all-English" edition, and it's disappointing, because it turns out that Burton wanted readers to read the Latin tags whether they could understand them or not. He included their syllables in the rhythm of his prose, so as you read this edition, you can almost hear him quote, then translate, then continue onward.

No booklover should skip this one, and this is the edition to have.

150 of 164 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A rhapsody of rags.", June 28, 2001

By 

tepi "tepi" - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Don't be misled by the title of this book, nor by what others may have told you about it. In the first place, it isn't so much a book about 'Melancholy' (or abnormal psychology, or depression, or whatever) as a book about Burton himself and, ultimately, about humankind. Secondly, it isn't so much a book for students of the history of English prose, as one for lovers of language who joy in the strong taste of English when it was at its most masculine and vigorous. Finally, it isn't so much a book for those interested in the renaissance, as for those interested in life.

Burton is not a writer for fops and milquetoasts. He was a crusty old devil who used to go down to the river to listen to the bargemen cursing so that he could keep in touch with the true tongue of his race. Sometimes I think he might have been better off as the swashbuckling Captain of a pirate ship. But somehow he ended up as a scholar, and instead of watching the ocean satisfyingly swallowing up his victims, he himself became an ocean of learning swallowing up whole libraries. His book, in consequence, although it may have begun as a mere 'medical treatise,' soon exploded beyond its bounds to become, in the words of one of his editors, "a grand literary entertainment, as well as a rich mine of miscellaneous learning."

Of his own book he has this to say : "... a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry; I confess all..." But don't believe him, he's in one of his irascible moods and exaggerating. In fact it's a marvelous book.

Here's a bit more of the crusty Burton I love; it's on his fellow scholars : "Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers."

And here is Burton warming to the subject of contemporary theologians : "Theologasters, if they can but pay ... proceed to the very highest degrees. Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons, ignoramuses wandering in the twilight of learning, ghosts of clergymen, itinerant quacks, dolts, clods, asses, mere cattle, intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precincts of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner."

Finally a passage I can't resist quoting which shows something of Burton's prose at its best, though I leave you to guess the subject: "... with this tempest of contention the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already in this kind in all sciences, and more than we can tell how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket, that as Fabius said, "It had been much better for some of them to have been born dumb, and altogether illiterate, than so far to dote to their own destruction."

To fully appreciate these quotations you would have to see them in context, and I'm conscious of having touched on only one of his many moods and aspects. But a taste for Burton isn't difficult to acquire. He's a mine of curious learning. When in full stride he can be very funny, and it's easy to share his feelings as he often seems to be describing, not so much his own world as today's.

But he does demand stamina. His prose overwhelms and washes over us like a huge tsunami, and for that reason he's probably best taken in small doses. If you are unfamiliar with his work and were to approach him with that in mind, you might find that (as is the case with Montaigne, a very different writer) you had discovered not so much a book as a companion for life.