Robert Burton

This is the man credited as the author of the work. However it would be more accurate to call him its compiler. There was a manuscript about melancholy that existed. During his decades spent working as a librarian, Robert Burton amended this document. His additions were significant. As a result of this, he is credited with the authorship but in reality, he is but one of the authors of this work. This is explained in the Introduction by William Gass.

Robert Burton was an Englishman. He lived 1577-1640. He was a well educated fellow, within the benefits and limitations of his time and place. Compared to today, he probably was literate in Latin and Greek and maybe French as well as English; he probably had also read Plato and Aristotle of the Greeks but his entire life was prior to Sir Isaac Newton's. This characterizes how much...