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, Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically opened & cut up by Democritus Junior. With a Satyricall Preface, conducing to the following Discourse. The Fourth Edition, corrected and augmented by the Author. [BURTON, Robert] Democritus Junior. EARLY PRINTED BOOKS,SCIENCE & MEDICINE

Folio (28 x 18.5 cm). pp.[v], 724, [10]. Contemporary full calf neatly and sympathetically rebacked, sides ruled in blind, spine with raised bands, one compartment with gilt lettering. With initial 'Argument of the Frontispiece' leaf, engraved title with allegorical border by C.Le Blon, woodcut head- & tail-pieces, initials and device on colophon. Old ink ownership inscriptions of J. Cumming and Elizabeth Martin to flyleaf, additional ownership inscriptions to title-page, both recto and verso (Thomas Mason). Upper joint slightly cracked, initial engraved title and dedication with margins repaired and restored, partly affecting image of title and touching text of other two ff., F1 upper corner restored, S1, S4, 3M4 and 4O3 with small rust-holes affecting 1 or 2 letters of text, the odd repaired chip or tear to lower margin, occasional worming to foot of inner margin, light damp-staining and occasional foxing, withal a very good copy in a handsome contemporary binding. Burton's best-selling treatise has been described as "the first psychiatric encyclopaedia" (Garrison-Morton), exploring the causes and cures of various mental afflictions while offering insight into the customs and social attitudes of its time. The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621 in quarto. Burton continued to make revisions, corrections, and augmentations to each edition published during his lifetime, and Pforzheimer notes that for this reason "all early editions are of interest textually". This fourth was published during the author's lifetime. "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. It has something in common with Brant's Ship of Fools, Erasmus's Praise of Folly, and More's Utopia, with Rabelais and Montaigne, and like all these it exercised a considerable influence on the thought of the time" (PMM).