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This little volume pays tribute to Robert Burton and his work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, in a style born of long and thorough familiarity with the subject. Evans handles a pen with erudite facility, following well in the footsteps of Burton himself.
He begins logically enough with a discussion of the personality of Burton, pointing out the depressed personality pattern which undoubtedly influenced Burton's entire life and possibly acted as a stimulus for the production of his Anatomy. The biographical data are drawn from many sources and portray a picture which adds considerably to the enjoyment of anyone reading his famed book.
Like Burton, the author has studded his pages with frequent quotations, all well selected and mostly borrowed directly from Burton's own work. Through such an approach he skillfully reveals Burton as “Burton unconsciously reveals himself if that may be termed unconscious which he himself freely admits: ‘I have laid myself open in this treatise—turned mine inside outward.’”
The chapter dealing with the book itself necessarily touches only the high spots. Actually the author does not really cover the subject matter— no author could, short of many hundreds of pages—but rather discusses the general style of the work and succeeds in making it sound most stimulating.
He emphasizes the lack of attention paid to the Anatomy by the medical profession. Although Burton was “by profession a divine and by inclination a physician” his work deserves much more recognition than it has received. In 1914 Sir William Osier apparently realized this and emphasized the value of the Anatomy as a serious psychiatric study. Subsequent authorities have occasionally praised Burton; but most previous historians, aside from mere mention, have apparently overlooked this intensely interesting study of a true psychiatric problem.
In the latter half of his book Evans attempts to point out Burton's actual contribution in the field of psychiatry, discussing Burton's theories of sy