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Lot 258

BRIGHT (TIMOTHY)
A Treatise of Melancholie, FIRST EDITION, Thomas Vautrollier, 1586

Amended
25 March 2015, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

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BRIGHT (TIMOTHY)

A Treatise of Melancholie, FIRST EDITION, woodcut device on title, title laid down with some loss 4 words of imprint supplied in manuscript facsimile), lacks errata leaf S8 but with the cancellandum 08, some neat marginal annotations and underlining in an early hand, eighteenth century calf, upper cover detached [STC 3747; Garrison-Morton 4918; Keynes, Bright, pp.9-13], 8vo (139 x 82mm.), Thomas Vautrollier, 1586

Footnotes

FIRST EDITION OF "THE FIRST COMPREHENSIVE DESCRIPTION OF DEPRESSION IN ENGLISH" (Garrison-Morton), and the first treatise on mental illness by an English physician. Keynes described it as "an important historical document for the psychiatrist and for the practitioner of psycho-somatic medicine", and argues convincingly that it influenced Shakespeare in the writing of Hamlet, and was definitely a major source for Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

Saleroom notices

Both covers now detached.

Additional information

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