The Anatomy of MelancholyA guidebook to melancholia or depression, and a masterly, all encompassing examination of the human condition. The Anatomy of Melancholy is the vast and only work by Robert Burton, the seventeenth century English priest and scholar. It 'opens and cuts up' the condition of melancholy, or depression, as we know it today, and in doing so explores a dizzying range of additional topics, including goblins, beauty, the geography of America, digestion, the