The Anatomy of Melancholy (Oxford English Texts)

Rating:
Summary: Chock full of curious lore and strong prose
Review: This purports to be a medical textbook, and many of the obviously learned author's quotations are from half-forgotten late mediæval medical writers. A plausible translation of the title into modern terms would be "A Study of Abnormal Psychology." The application of Scholastic methods to this topic --- so similar, and yet so different, from contemporary academic discourse --- creates a curious impression. He invokes astrology and theology in forming his psychology.

But in fact, Burton uses this arcane subject to go off on a profound and lengthy meditation on the melancholies and misfortunes of life itself. The author, it seems, was easily distracted, and his distractions are our gain. The passages on the Melancholy of Scholars, and the Melancholy of Lovers, are themselves worthy of the price of admission.

His prose is unlike anything before him or since him. It has some kinship to the paradoxical and simile-laden style of the Euphuists, but his individual sentences are often pithy and brief.

This seventeenth-century classic ought to be read by anyone interested in the period, in early psychology, or in the history of English prose.

Rating:
Summary: edition makes light of a heavy paperback
Review: This review assumes a familiarity with the text.
It applies to the nyrb classics April 2001 edition.

I've been looking out for keeper editions of two classics for more than 20 years now.
Both of them have recently been published in the nyrb classics series.

This edition of a book I could only afford to pester librarians for inter-library loans for - I don't have access to a big city's resources or the budget to splash out on the Oxford edition - is in every important way what I need.
It is physically accessible, having a good wide binding margin with fine enough leaves to allow hands-free reading at a table (and at least a half hour of supine reading before your chest caves in with the weight). It has been edited with obvious care, showing regard for the 19th Century work done by Shilleto but not leaving the reader to wallow in disagreeable old-fashioned type, spelling etc.

In particular, the editor has not made more than the fewest necessary notes of his own; your reading is not hindered at all.
For those who are not comfortable with small type, I'd suggest a careful look at the specimens online before they commit any money.
I like the clean type and find that small type is easier to read in my scanning style than anything more expansive.

And the index is, so far as I have had time to check, mostly reliable but with a few misdirections as to the book number.

So, for the price it is a marvel.
And even at a greater price I would consider it very good value.