The Anatomy of Melancholy

Uncommon card · No. 163212

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 but republished five more times over the next seventeen years with massive alterations and expansions. The book is a medical treatise about melancholy (depression). Over 500,000 words long, it discusses a wide range of topics besides depression – including history, astronomy, geography, and various aspects of literature and science – and frequently uses humour to make points or explain topics. Burton wrote it under the pseudonym Democritus Junior as a reference to the Ancient Greek "laughing philosopher" Democritus. The Anatomy of Melancholy inspired several writers of the following centuries, such as Enlightenment figures like Samuel Johnson...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Robert Burton, Public domain