1801 Melancholy; As it Proceeds from the Disposition and Habit, The Passion of Love, and the Influence of Religion. Drawn Chiefly from the Celebrated Work intitled Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy; And in Which the Kinds, Causes, Consequences and Cures of this English Malady "- are traced from within "Its inmost centre to its outmost skin."

Description

Illustrated, Leather Binding

In a full tree calf binding. Frontispiece engraving depicting melancholy. Tailpieces to each chapter. Robert Burton (157701640) was an English author who wrote the encyclopedic tome The Anatomy of Melancholy and was also a lifelong sufferer of depression. For Burton, "melancholy" describes a range of mental illness from obsession, to delusion, to what we would now call clinical depression. Burton suggests a variety of remedies for melancholy, but warns they are all ultimately useless, in characteristic self-contradiction. The Anatomy of Melancholy was republished five times over seventeen years with massive alterations and expansions. This volume is one of the later revised editions and explores the causes, consequences and cures of melancholy, particularly melancholy stemming from love and religion.