"Now, with "The making of the American essay' the editor includes selections ranging from Anne Bradstreet's secular prayers to Washington Irving's satires, Emily Dickinson's love letters to Kenneth Goldsmith's catalog's, Gertrude Stein's portraits to James Baldwin's and Norman Mailer's mediations on boxing. In this volume the editor uncovers new stories in the American essay's past and shows us that some of the most fiercely daring writers in the American literary canon have turned to the essay in order to produce some of our culture's most exhilarating art."-- book jacket.

An intriguing collection of more than 70 Latin American essays, some never before translated into English, gives us the whole spectrum of concerns that have animated some of the greatest writers of our time--from Andres Bello, Pablo Neruda, and Alfonso Reyes to Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Rosario Ferre--an assembly confident, ingenious, aware.

The late Leo Spitzer enjoyed a reputation as one of the twentieth century's outstanding philologists and linguists. His writings in the field of the romance languages and of comparative philology have been always stimulating, often controversial. This collection presents his essays in English and American literature which appeared in various journals and other publications during his lifetime. They range from an explication de texte of three great Middle English poems, through close scrutiny of writings of Donne, Milton, Keats, to a consideration of Edgar Allan Poe and Whitman, and, finally, to one of Yeats' poems. Each of the essays in this collection is illuminated and heightened by Professor Spitzer's careful and imaginative exegesis. The delightful "American Advertising Explained as Popular Art" is included as a sample of Professor Spitzer's commentary on American culture. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith—selected by acclaimed essayist Phillip Lopate "Not only an education but a joy. This is a book for the ages." —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances The essay form is an especially democratic one, and many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves—sometimes critically—to American values. We see the Puritans, the Founding Fathers and Mothers, and the stars of the American Renaissance struggle to establish a national culture. A grand tradition of nature writing runs from Audubon, Thoreau, and John Muir to Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard. Marginalized groups use the essay to assert or to complicate notions of identity. Lopate has cast his net wide, embracing critical, personal, political, philosophical, literary, polemical, autobiographical, and humorous essays. Americans by birth as well as immigrants appear here, famous essayists alongside writers more celebrated for fiction or poetry. The result is a dazzling overview of the riches of the American essay.

Featuring Essays by Benjamin Franklin • Ralph Waldo Emerson • W.E.B. Du Bois • Albert Einstein • Gloria Steinem • Henry David Thoreau • Martin Luther King, Jr. • Mark Twain • Erma Bombeck • Abraham Lincoln • John F. Kennedy • and More... These are Americans who had something important to say—and said it in powerful, convincing ways. A compendium of commentary, criticism, and oratory excellence from throughout the nation’s history, The Signet Book of American Essays is a perfect resource for those searching for the most timeless essays ever conceived by America’s notable scientists, philosophers, politicians, and writers. From the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin to the outspoken empowerment of Gloria Steinem, from the biting satire of Mark Twain to the grave seriousness of Franklin D. Roosevelt, this collection offers the opportunity to learn the subtle arts of persuasion and rational argument as exemplified in these great American dissertations crafted by some of the country’s most brilliant and intriguing citizens.

A collection of the year's best essays selected by Robert Atwan and guest editor Rebecca Solnit. "Essays are restless literature, trying to find out how things fit together, how we can think about two things at once, how the personal and the public can inform each other, how two overtly dissimilar things share a secret kinship," contends Rebecca Solnit in her introduction. From lost languages and extinct species to life-affirming cosmologies and literary myths that offer cold comfort, the personal and the public collide in The Best American Essays 2019. This searching, necessary collection grapples with what has preoccupied us in the past year--sexual politics, race, violence, invasive technologies--and yet, in reading for the book, Solnit also found "how discovery can be a deep pleasure." The Best American Essays 2019 includes Michelle Alexander, Jabari Asim, Alexander Chee, Masha Gessen, Jean Guerrero, Elizabeth Kolbert, Terese Marie Mailhot, Jia Tolentino, and others.

The acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory presents an anthology of personal essays by Hilton Als, Christopher Hitchens, Zadie Smith and others. In her selection process for this sterling volume, Edwidge Danticat considers the inherent vulnerability of the essay form—a vulnerability that seems all the more present in today’s spotlighted public square. As she says in her introduction, “when we insert our ‘I’ (our eye) to search deeper into someone, something, or ourselves, we are always risking a yawn or a slap, indifference or disdain.” Here are intimate personal essays that examine a range of vital topics, from cancer diagnosis to police brutality, and from devastating natural disasters to the dilemmas of modern medicine. All in all, “the brave voices behind these experiences keep the pages turning” (Kirkus Reviews). The Best American Essays 2011 includes entries by Hilton Als, Katy Butler, Toi Derricotte, Christopher Hitchens, Pico Iyer, Charlie LeDuff, Chang-Rae Lee, Lia Purpura, Zadie Smith, Reshma Memon Yaqub, and others.

A collection of nonfiction essays on such topics as culture, myth, history, romance, and sex includes contributions by such authors as Guy Davenport, Annie Dillard, Jamaica Kincaid, and Susan Sontag. In this singular collection, John D'Agata takes a literary tour of lyric essays written by the masters of the craft. Beginning with 1975 and John McPhee's ingenious piece, the Search for Marvin Gardens, D'Agata selects an example of creative nonfiction for each subsequent year. These essays are unrestrained, elusive, explosive, mysterious, a personal lingual playground. They encompass and illuminate culture, myth, history, romance, and sex. Each essay is a world of its own, a world so distinctive it resists definition.

Presents an anthology of the best literary essays published in 2014, selected from American periodicals.