Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

The Anatomy of Melancholy, one of the richest, most inexhaustible books in the English language.Ostensibly an elaborately systematized medical treatise dealing with various morbid mental states — their causes, symptoms, and cures — the Anatomy is much more: a compendium of memorable utterances on the human condition in general, compiled from classical, scholastic, and contemporary sources. For this edition, the editors carefully selected passages of the most psychological and genera...

Journey through the subject of melancholia in an easily accessible volume touching on topics from love and sex to religion and geographyBurton's The Anatomy of Melancholy is one of the great but unclassifiable prose works in English literature: diverting, delightfully rambling, and filled with recondite learning and peculiar facts and speculations. Burton, frustrated at the stagnant, disorderly society in which he found himself, became convinced that the p...

Absolutely the Best Book Ever Written...Bar NoneFirst 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, 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 Burtons view of mankind and mankinds condition. Al...

According to Wikipedia: "The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up) is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621. Burton's book consists mostly of a collection of opinions of a multitude of writers, grouped under quaint and old-f...

'The best book ever written' Nicholas Lezard, GuardianRobert Burton's labyrinthine, beguiling, playful masterpiece is his attempt to 'anatomize and cut up' every aspect of the condition of melancholy, from which he had suffered throughout his life. Ranging over beauty, digestion, the planets, alcohol, goblins, kissing, poetry and the restorative power of books, among many other things, The Anatomy of Melancholy has fascinated figures from Samuel J...

"In his brilliant new book, Burton systematically shows that certainty is a mental state . . . that doesn't dependably reflect object truth." — ForbesYou recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001—you know these things, well, because you just do.In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the...

Although presented as a medical text, The Anatomy of Melancholy is as much a sui generis work of literature as it is a scientific or philosophical text, and Robert Burton addresses far more than his stated subject. In fact, the Anatomy uses melancholy as the lens through which all human emotion and thought may be scrutinized, and virtually the entire contents of a 17th-century library are marshalled into service of this goal.

On its surface, the book is presented as a medical textbook in which Burton applies his vast and varied learning, in the scholasticmanner, to the subject of melancholia (which includes what is now termed clinical depression). Though presented as a medical text,The Anatomy of Melancholy is as much a sui generis work of literature as it is a scientific or philosophical text, and Burton addresses far more than his stated subject. In fact, the Anatomy uses melancholy as the lens through which ...

According to Wikipedia: "The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up) is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621. Burton's book consists mostly of a collection of opinions of a multitude of writers, grouped under quaint and old-f...

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 – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and...

A labor of love taking much of Burton's life to write and revise, "The Anatomy of Melancholy" is an expansive, informative, and eccentric work of genius first published in 1621. Burton was an English churchman and a scholar, and his depth and breadth of knowledge is readily apparent in this inexhaustible book. Through the frame of a medical treatise, Burton begins with melancholy and slowly deals with various mental states, frequently digressing with commentary from a myriad of other field...