I was given this book by my father when I was seven years old and was thoroughly enchanted by it, and remain so to this day. The Owl and the Pussy Cat has passed into children's lore - many people know the rhyme through the song (was it Burl Ives?) or through new illustrated versions of it. They know the limericks (or at least the form, if not the rather esoteric content - the old man with the Beard, for instance, and the lady with the excessively long chin who

had it made sharp
and purchased a harp
and played several tunes with her chin).

But do they know of The Dong with the Luminous Nose, or the Pobble Who Has No Toes, or the short history of Violet, Slingsby, Guy, and Lionel? Or the illustrated botanical alphabet with such plants as the ManyPeeplia Upsidedownia (you'd have to see the drawing!) It would be impossible to say how many times I read, re-read, and enjoyed this book as a child and an adult, including the rather touching, affectionate introduction to the man himself.

Please, please buy this book. You'll never regret it.

Edward Lear's limmericks, humorous poems and other nonsensical endeavours all collected into one volume. This book never fails to bring a smile on my face, even though I've quite outgrown its designated age group. I think Lear's work can appeal to anyone with a wry view of the world and an affinity for the mildly grotesque (whatever that means). Need I also mention the endearing sketches which decorate the book and Holbrook's most helpful introduction? In short, this is the ideal present for yourself or your loved ones.

a tongue-in-cheek look at the "madness" of bibliomania, inspired by Robert Burton's 17th century classic "The Anatomy of Melancholy", this book is filled with fun facts and interesting anecdotes from the world of books. If you're a book-collector, booklover, bookseller, or just all-around bookaholic, you'll delight in this compendium of book trivia, and in the clinical classification of the numerous manifestations of bibliomania (book-madness), from the book-thief to the book-abuser to the book-hoarder, and everything inbetween - but be careful you don't find yourself described therein!

Don't be misled by the title of this book, nor by what others may have told you about it. In the first place, it isn't so much a book about 'Melancholy' (or abnormal psychology, or depression, or whatever) as a book about Burton himself and, ultimately, about humankind. Secondly, it isn't so much a book for students of the history of English prose, as one for lovers of language who joy in the strong taste of English when it was at its most masculine and vigorous. Finally, it isn't so much a book for those interested in the renaissance, as for those interested in life.

Burton is not a writer for fops and milquetoasts. He was a crusty old devil who used to go down to the river to listen to the bargemen cursing so that he could keep in touch with the true tongue of his race. Sometimes I think he might have been better off as the swashbuckling Captain of a pirate ship. But somehow he ended up as a scholar, and instead of watching the ocean satisfyingly swallowing up his victims, he himself became an ocean of learning swallowing up whole libraries. His book, in consequence, although it may have begun as a mere 'medical treatise,' soon exploded beyond its bounds to become, in the words of one of his editors, "a grand literary entertainment, as well as a rich mine of miscellaneous learning."

Of his own book he has this to say : "... a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry; I confess all..." But don't believe him, he's in one of his irascible moods and exaggerating. In fact it's a marvelous book.

Here's a bit more of the crusty Burton I love; it's on his fellow scholars : "Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers."

And here is Burton warming to the subject of contemporary theologians : "Theologasters, if they can but pay ... proceed to the very highest degrees. Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons, ignoramuses wandering in the twilight of learning, ghosts of clergymen, itinerant quacks, dolts, clods, asses, mere cattle, intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precincts of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner."

Finally a passage I can't resist quoting which shows something of Burton's prose at its best, though I leave you to guess the subject: "... with this tempest of contention the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already in this kind in all sciences, and more than we can tell how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket, that as Fabius said, "It had been much better for some of them to have been born dumb, and altogether illiterate, than so far to dote to their own destruction."

To fully appreciate these quotations you would have to see them in context, and I'm conscious of having touched on only one of his many moods and aspects. But a taste for Burton isn't difficult to acquire. He's a mine of curious learning. When in full stride he can be very funny, and it's easy to share his feelings as he often seems to be describing, not so much his own world as today's.

But he does demand stamina. His prose overwhelms and washes over us like a huge tsunami, and for that reason he's probably best taken in small doses. If you are unfamiliar with his work and were to approach him with that in mind, you might find that (as is the case with Montaigne, a very different writer) you had discovered not so much a book as a companion for life.

This purports to be a medical textbook, and many of the obviously learned author's quotations are from half-forgotten late mediæval medical writers. A plausible translation of the title into modern terms would be "A Study of Abnormal Psychology." The application of Scholastic methods to this topic --- so similar, and yet so different, from contemporary academic discourse --- creates a curious impression. He invokes astrology and theology in forming his psychology.

But in fact, Burton uses this arcane subject to go off on a profound and lengthy meditation on the melancholies and misfortunes of life itself. The author, it seems, was easily distracted, and his distractions are our gain. The passages on the Melancholy of Scholars, and the Melancholy of Lovers, are themselves worthy of the price of admission.

His prose is unlike anything before him or since him. It has some kinship to the paradoxical and simile-laden style of the Euphuists, but his individual sentences are often pithy and brief.

This seventeenth-century classic ought to be read by anyone interested in the period, in early psychology, or in the history of English prose.

Don't be misled by the title of this book, nor by what others may have told you about it. In the first place, it isn't so much a book about 'Melancholy' (or abnormal psychology, or depression, or whatever) as a book about Burton himself and, ultimately, about humankind. Secondly, it isn't so much a book for students of the history of English prose, as one for lovers of language who joy in the strong taste of English when it was at its most masculine and vigorous. Finally, it isn't so much a book for those interested in the renaissance, as for those interested in life.

Burton is not a writer for fops and milquetoasts. He was a crusty old devil who used to go down to the river to listen to the bargemen cursing so that he could keep in touch with the true tongue of his race. Sometimes I think he might have been better off as the swashbuckling Captain of a pirate ship. But somehow he ended up as a scholar, and instead of watching the ocean satisfyingly swallowing up his victims, he himself became an ocean of learning swallowing up whole libraries. His book, in consequence, although it may have begun as a mere 'medical treatise,' soon exploded beyond its bounds to become, in the words of one of his editors, "a grand literary entertainment, as well as a rich mine of miscellaneous learning."

Of his own book he has this to say : "... a rhapsody of rags gathered together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgement, wit, learning, harsh, raw, rude, phantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry; I confess all..." But don't believe him, he's in one of his irascible moods and exaggerating. In fact it's a marvelous book.

Here's a bit more of the crusty Burton I love; it's on his fellow scholars : "Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers."

And here is Burton warming to the subject of contemporary theologians : "Theologasters, if they can but pay ... proceed to the very highest degrees. Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons, ignoramuses wandering in the twilight of learning, ghosts of clergymen, itinerant quacks, dolts, clods, asses, mere cattle, intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precincts of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner."

Finally a passage I can't resist quoting which shows something of Burton's prose at its best, though I leave you to guess the subject: "... with this tempest of contention the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already in this kind in all sciences, and more than we can tell how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket, that as Fabius said, "It had been much better for some of them to have been born dumb, and altogether illiterate, than so far to dote to their own destruction."

To fully appreciate these quotations you would have to see them in context, and I'm conscious of having touched on only one of his many moods and aspects. But a taste for Burton isn't difficult to acquire. He's a mine of curious learning. When in full stride he can be very funny, and it's easy to share his feelings as he often seems to be describing, not so much his own world as today's.

But he does demand stamina. His prose overwhelms and washes over us like a huge tsunami, and for that reason he's probably best taken in small doses. If you are unfamiliar with his work and were to approach him with that in mind, you might find that (as is the case with Montaigne, a very different writer) you had discovered not so much a book as a companion for life.

This small book of platitudes written by Mr. Jackson is a fine example of the thought of the English gentlemen at the turn of the century. The comments written by Chesterton in response to these platitudes are further an excellent example of wit and clarity of thought that marks Chesterton's works. For one who wishes to quickly aquaint himself with Chesterton, this small volume is an excellent look at the man who cut through the verbiage of modern thought to get at the heart of truth. It is amusing and enlightening all at once.