[BURTON, Robert (1577-1640).] The Anatomy of Melancholy, What It Is. With all the Kindes, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and severall Cures of it. Oxford: John Lichfield and James Short for Henry Cripps, 1621.

[BURTON, Robert (1577-1640).] The Anatomy of Melancholy, What It Is. With all the Kindes, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and severall Cures of it. Oxford: John Lichfield and James Short for Henry Cripps, 1621.

The first edition of the classic study on melancholy, the Robert Borthwick Adam copy—one of the most beloved books of its age. Numerous editions witness its early popularity. Burton’s treatment is encyclopedic, with long digressions, and the book's influence has never waned. "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). Grolier, English, 18; Grolier, Langland to Wither, 30; Norman 381; PMM 120; STC 4159.

Quarto (184 x 143mm). Woodcut initials and headpieces, typographical ornaments (title supplied; occasional small marginal repairs; last four leaves with inner margins renewed; CC6 with repaired tear crossing text of shoulder note; some pale spotting at end). Modern red morocco gilt by F. Bedford, edges gilt; quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: Robert Borthwick Adam (1833-1904; leather bookplate) – Edgar F. Leo (1880-1930, husband of the Provincetown Players playwright Rita McCann Wellman; bookplate) – Robert Walsingham Martin (1871-1961; bookplate) – John F. Fleming (his sale, Christie's New York, 18 November 1988, lot 61).

Pre-Lot Text
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