“LOVE IS A PLAGUE, A TORTURE, A HELL… THE SPANISH INQUISITION IS NOT COMPARABLE TO IT”: BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, 1660

[BURTON, Robert] Democritus Junior. The Anatomy of Melancholy. What it is, with all the kinds causes, symptomes, prognostickes, & severall cures of it. In three Partitions, with their severall Sections, members, & subsections… With a Satyricall Preface. London: Printed for H. Cripps and E. Wallis, 1660. Small folio, 18th-century full speckled brown calf rebacked, raised bands, burgundy morocco spine label.

Seventh edition, "corrected and augmented," of this early description of the state and treatment of depression, “destined to become the most frequently reprinted psychiatric text,” with engraved allegorical title page.

"The first psychiatric encyclopedia… and also a literary tour de force" (Garrison & Morton 4918.1), Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy helped to popularize what had previously been a mysterious and largely unexplored topic, the mental state that has come to be called "depression." "Burton believed depression to be both a physical and spiritual ailment" (Norman 381) and elaborately divided the Anatomy into four main sections and numerous subsections, each of which deals with the causes, symptoms, and cures of various types of melancholy. "His approach to mental illness was so advanced for his time that his book had no immediate predecessors and no immediate successors" (Alexander & Selesnick, 102). "This great book was destined to become the most frequently reprinted psychiatric text… Nearly 1000 authors are cited, about half of them medical. It was so popular that five editions appeared in Burton's lifetime and three more in the 17th century" (Hunter & MacAlpine, 94). First issued in quarto format in 1621, it was "a work once almost forgotten, but which owed its revival to the inordinate praise of Dr. Johnson, who observed that it 'was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise'" (Lowndes I:328). "In the early 19th century, the Romantic movement made this tract into literature. Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats were all, among many others, fascinated by the work" (Charles Rosen, The New York Review of Books). "On every page is the impress of a singularly deep and original genius… one of the most fascinating books in literature" (DNB).

Paginated by section, with occasional mispagination, typical of books of this period. With side notes, index at rear, and decorative woodcut headpieces and initials. Vignette title page by Christof Le Blon the elder, known for his ornamental engravings. This edition has been found with two different colophons, no priority given: the more frequently seen "Printed for Henry Cripps, and are to bee sold by him in Popes-head Ally; And by Elisha Wallis, at the Golden Horse-shooe in the Old-Bayley. 1660" (ESTC R27243), as with this copy; the other imprint reads "Printed by R.W. for Henry Cripps of Oxford, and are to be sold by Andrew Crook in Pauls Church-yard, and by Henry Cripps and Lodowick Lloyd in Popes-head Ally, 1651" (ESTC R483187). Wing B6183. See PMM 120. Owner signatures to half title, title page, and dedication page; owner blind embossing.

Half title leaf repaired and mounted with loss to numbers 8 and 9 of "The Argument of the Frontispiece" on verso; expert paper repair to title page. Scattered light foxing; staining to pages 331-34, not affecting readability. Light rubbing to boards. A handsome copy of this landmark work.