| | 1 | Author: | Bradford, Gamaliel | Add | | | Title: | An Odd Sort of Popular Book  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MULTIPLICITY of editions does not
make a book a classic. Otherwise Worcester's
Dictionary and Mrs. Lincoln's
Cook-Book might almost rival Shakespeare.
Nevertheless, when a work
which has little but its literary quality to
recommend it achieves sudden and permanent
popularity, it is safe to assume
that there is something about it which will
repay curious consideration. As to the
popularity of The Anatomy of Melancholy
there can be no dispute. "Scarce any
book of philology in our land hath, in
so short a time, passed through so many
editions," says old Fuller; though why
"philology"? The first of these editions
appeared in 1621. It was followed
by four others during the few years preceding
the author's death in 1640. Three
more editions were published at different
times in the seventeenth century. The
eighteenth century was apparently contented
to read Burton in the folios; but
the book was reprinted in the year 1800,
and since then it has been issued in various
forms at least as many as forty times,
though never as yet with what might be
called thorough editing. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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