Anatomy of Love

‘One of the indispensable books’ Philip Pullman

‘The best book ever written’ Guardian

With an introduction by Becca Rothfeld.

Dryness, paleness, waking, sighing, despair, frenzy, death: love’s repercussions can be dire indeed. Perhaps that is why Robert Burton devoted the largest part of his pioneering 17th-century psychological work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, to this supreme passion. Edited to offer the modern reader easier access to this classic text, this abridged version preserves all the fantastic variety of the original, as Burton knits together stories and quotations drawn from millennia of European literature in order to understand love’s causes, consequences, and cures.

We encounter gods and goddesses, ancient kings and queens, lascivious monks and pure-hearted shepherds, marriages happy and unhappy, allurements natural and unnatural, and, most importantly, many cures for love-melancholy, from the obvious to the arcane. Intricate yet commonsensical, learned yet earthy, and twinkling throughout with ironic warmth, Burton’s masterpiece speaks to the deepest concerns of the human heart as well today as it did four centuries ago.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Robert Burton (1577-1640) was born to a family of landed gentry in Leicestershire and matriculated at Oxford at the age of 15. He remained there for the rest of his life, and was eventually appointed librarian of Christ Church College. Inspired by his own struggle with melancholy, Burton began research into the subject, eventually amassing the collection of musings and quotations that would become The Anatomy of Melancholy. First published in 1621, the work was immensely popular, and was expanded and reprinted five times over the course of Burton’s life.

Becca Rothfeld is the non-fiction book critic at the Washington Post, the author of the essay collection All Things are Too Small, and an editor at The Point. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Zach, and her dog, Kafka.