The Anatomy of Melancholy - ROBERTSON DAVIES’ ANNOTATED COPY

First Edition thus paperback in good plus condition. Inscribed and annotated to the title page by the Canadian academic and author Robertson Davies, ‘Robertson Davies / Windhover / July 20: 1982’. Many passages underlined in red biro throughout pp 1 - 223 with occasional scholarly notes written to the margins and endpapers. Laid in is a University of Toronto 1982 Alexander Lectures invitation card noting Robertson Davies’ lectures including ‘My Cue is Villainous Melancholy’.

Davies drew upon this text most prominently in The Cunning Man in which his protagonist Dr. Jonathan Hullah, uses Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy as a manual for observing human behaviour, diagnosing ailments, and navigating the eccentricities of life.

Provenance: Robertson Davies’ daughter, Miranda Davies

Robertson Davies was a novelist, playwright, journalist, and academic widely celebrated as Canada's foremost man of letters. He taught literature at Trinity College and served as the founding Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 1981. His Times obituary recorded that ‘Davies encompassed all the great elements of life... His novels combined deep seriousness and psychological inquiry with fantasy and exuberant mirth.’

PHYSICAL CONDITION: Wrappers a little shelf worn to edges; endpapers and text block age toned, otherwise clean and unmarked; just cracking over front gutters but binding remains entirely sound. 547 pp.