[BURTON, Robert (1577-1640)]. The Anatomy of Melancholy.

[BURTON, Robert (1577-1640)]. The Anatomy of Melancholy. What it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptoms, prognosticks and several cures of it. In three Partitions, with their several Sections, members and subjections, Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, opened and cut up. By Democritus Junior. With a Satyricall Preface Conducing to the following Discourse. The fourth Edition, corrected and augmented by the Author. Oxford: Printed for Henry Cripps, 1632. Folio in 4s (264 x 175mm). Engraved allegorical title [or “frontispeice” [sic]], headpieces and initials (“The Argument of the Frontispeice” leaf and title laid down, and lacking all before them [i.e. blanks], R1, R2, Qqq3 and Qqq4 torn and repaired with severe loss, rusthole in S[1] affecting letters, lacks Hh [1] and Hh[2], variable but mainly light spotting, staining and browning). 19^th-century half roan (upper cover detached, rubbed and scuffed). Provenance: [?]Joh. Crompton, 1674 (signature on title); Sarah Atkinson (19^th-century label); G. L. J. Engle, 1952 (label); expansive presentation inscription on front free endpaper dated 1846; old catalogue descriptions laid down or tipped-onto front pastedown; old inscription at foot of colophon; from the Library of the late Sir George Engle. Cf. Brunet I, 501: “Ouvrage singulier dont la première édition date de 1621 (Oxford) …”; Grolier English 18; Grolier Langland to Wither 30; Krivatsy 1967; Norman 381; Madan II, 881; PMM 120: “… [Burton’s] masterpiece … The Anatomy, as its publishing history shows, was one of the most popular books of the seventeenth century. All the learning of the age as well as its humour – and its pedantry – are there … its admirers will continue to read and re-read it.”