SOURCE: Chapple, Anne S. “Robert Burton's Geography of Melancholy.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 33, No. 1 (1993): 99-130.

In the following essay, Chapple examines how Burton's interest in the burgeoning field of cartography influenced The Anatomy of Melancholy, primarily focusing on the “foolscap” world map described in the preface.

Observing map collectors in 1570, Dr. John Dee wrote, “Some, to beautify their Halls, Parlors, Chambers, Galeries, Studies, or Libraries … liketh, loveth, getteth, and useth, Maps, Charts, and Geographicall Globes.”¹ Dee was writing at a time when only the wealthy could afford to own maps, curious artifacts that resemble works of art more than they do the mathematically precise productions of our own time. But despite their relative scarcity and prohibitive cost, maps became increasingly accessible in university settings; to some extent, maps were even accessible to the general public. Thomas Blundeville's 1589 treatise, A Briefe Description of Universal Mappes and Cardes and...