Burton, Robert 1577-1640
English writer and clergyman

Born in Lindley, Leicestershire, he was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and in 1599 was elected a student of Christ Church. In 1616 he was presented to the Oxford vicarage of St Thomas, and about 1630 to the rectory of Segrave, Leicestershire. He kept both livings, but spent his life at Christ Church, where he died. The first edition of his great work, Anatomy of Melancholy, was written under the pseudonym 'Democritus Junior', and appeared in quarto in 1621 (final, sixth edition, 1651-52). This strange book is a vast and witty compendium of Jacobean knowledge about the 'disease' of melancholy, gathered from classical and medieval writers, as well as folklore and superstition. One of the most interesting parts is the long preface, 'Democritus to the Reader', in which Burton gives indirectly an account of himself and his studies.

Bibliography: B Evans, The Psychiatry of Robert Burton (1944)