A labor of love taking much of Burton's life to write and revise, 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' is an expansive, informative, and eccentric work of genius first published in 1621. Burton was an English churchman and a scholar, and his depth and breadth of knowledge is readily apparent in this inexhaustible book. Through the frame of a medical treatise, Burton begins with melancholy and slowly deals with various mental states, frequently digressing with commentary from a myriad of other fields, inc