The Anatomy of Melancholy
by
"Democritus Junior" (Robert Burton).

 Robert Burton was an Oxford don in the early 17th-Century, and The Anatomy of Melancholy was his life's work. It went through six different editions from 1621 until the final, posthumous edition of 1652, each rewritten and exanded by Burton. Under the general heading of melancholy -- what we nowadays call depression -- he assembled an enormous compendium of Mediæval medicine, classical legends, anecdotes, wit, philosophy and poetry. From John Milton to Samuel Johnson, it influenced two centuries of writers until its popularity started to wane with the Romantics. It is (I admit) a major undertaking to read -- but like Everest, it is there. 

"Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise."
--- James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson

"I do not know of a more heartless sight than the reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy. What need was there of unearthing the bones of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of the newest fashion to modern censure ? What hapless stationer could dream of Burton ever becoming popular?"
--- Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia