Classic Essays

From the works of Francis Bacon and Daniel Defoe to those of Virginia Woolf and Martin Luther King, Jr.: more than 200 of the greatest essays and speeches by British and American writers over the past four centuries.

If you have ever faced a tight deadline when composing an essay with a strict word limit, you'll understand the challenge faced by Christopher Morley in "1100 Words."

"The Advantages of Having One Leg" loosely follows the outline of a classical rhetorical exercise (or progymnasmata): the amplification of a proverb.

Franklin advises an acquaintance, "But if you will not take this counsel and persist in thinking a commerce with the sex inevitable, then I repeat my former advice, that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones."

In this review of two books on writing, Benchley uses an extended analogy to illustrate the distinctive method and style of each author.

In "Advice to Youth," a talk he delivered to a group of young girls, Mark Twain turns the conventional moral lecture on its head.

"The Almost Perfect State" illustrates the delicate balance of biting wit and lyrical reflection in Marquis's finest prose. As Christopher Morley wrote in his introduction to the essay in 1921, "[Marquis's] humor adorns a rich and mellow gravity. When strongly moved he sometimes utters an epigram that rings like steel leaving the scabbard."

After reading Stevenson's essay, you may find it worthwhile to compare "An Apology for Idlers" with two other essays in our collection: "In Praise of Idleness," by Bertrand Russell, and "Why Are Beggars Despised?" by George Orwell.

In this satirical essay (originally published in 1916), Leacock anticipates F. Scott Fitzgerald's observation that the "very rich . . . are different from you and me."

In "The Art of Controversy," Ambrose Bierce examines the irrational appeals underlying most arguments. What's more important than winning an argument, Bierce says, is defeating an opponent and entertaining the audience.

American statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin offers advice on "preserving health" and avoiding "unpleasing dreams."

In "The Art of Walking," originally published 1n 1918, Christopher Morley pays "reverence and honor" to the practice of reflective walking at a time when automobiles were rapidly making "the highways their own beyond dispute."

Arthur Symons' highly descriptive writing shows the influence of the impressionist painters he deeply admired. As critic Nicholas Freeman has observed, "Symons does not confine himself entirely to the visual, but he seems torn between an evocation of the scene and a reaction to it."

In September 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered the following speech before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. Although the address was generally well received, in time a number of black leaders criticized Washington for conveying what W.E.B. Du Bois described as "the old attitude of...

"At the Turn of the Year" comes from a collection of nature essays originally published by William Sharp under the pen name of Fiona Macleod.

In this narrative essay (originally published in 1922), Croy blends understatement and hyperbole to great comic effect.

This excerpt from chapter 12 of "Walden," developed with historical allusions and an understated analogy, conveys Thoreau's unsentimental view of nature.

Though her essays were described as "genteel," Agnes Repplier was capable of delivering some forceful arguments, as in her defense of the "brutal fairy stories" that some felt should be "banished ruthlessly from our shelves."

In "Blakesmoor in H-----shire," Lamb returns to the great country house where his grandmother had been a housekeeper and which he had visited as a child. Now abandoned, this "lonely temple" serves as an emblem of the transience of all human things.

Johnson argues in this short essay that the "multiplication of books" doesn't necessarily lead to the advance of "happiness or knowledge."

Edward Thomas was born in the London borough of Lambeth, and in "Broken Memories" he describes how the pastoral suburb of his childhood has been "effaced" by the inexorable growth of the city.

In the short essay "A Brother of St. Francis," from the collection "About Many Things" (1920), Grace Rhys draws some thoughtful comparisons between humans and pigs.

In this comic essay, a brief model of business writing inspires Robert Benchley to compose a fanciful narrative.

Ernest Hemingway's famously economical style is already on display in this article from June 1920, an instructional piece (developed by process analysis) on setting up camp and cooking outdoors.

In the following excerpts from her first published work, "Letters for Literary Ladies" (1795), Edgeworth relies on the fictional character of Caroline to explore the relationships between women and men at the end of the 18th century.

Leonard Woolf characterized Robert Lynd as "one of those impeccable journalists who every week for 30 or 40 years turn out an impeccable essay . . . like an impeccable sausage, about anything or everything or nothing." "Child's Talk," originally published in 1922, is one of those impeccable essays.

In this essay from "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent," American author Washington Irving affectionately describes an English Christmas from the point of view of a stranger who enjoys neither a blazing hearth nor "the warm grasp of friendship."

Robert Benchley's account of the Gummidge family's "Christmas Afternoon"--written "in the manner" of Charles Dickens--is an especially witty example of parody.

In this end-of-year essay, Ambrose Bierce, author of "The Devil's Dictionary," looks at the holiday season through a dark, satirical lens.

Goldsmith's "A City Night Piece" offers a view of London that is at once haunting and compassionate.

In this excerpt from his popular "History of England" (1848), Thomas Macaulay offers evocative descriptions of the coffee houses in late-17th-century London.

Employing strategies that later came to be associated with creative nonfiction, Huneker records his impressions of Coney Island "during a torrid spell" and relates his heart-breaking encounter with the Levins family.

These passages from the opening chapter of "The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying" (1651) are representative of Jeremy Taylor's rich and impassioned prose.

Notice Samuel Johnson's reliance on classification in his discussion of a topic he had often practiced at a London tavern called the Turk's Head.

In "A Conversation With a Cat," Belloc's fanciful discourse is abruptly interrupted in the final paragraph.

In an essay not published until several years after his death, humorist Mark Twain examines the effects of social pressures on our thoughts and beliefs.

Born in the small town of Alresford in Hampshire, England, Mary Russell Mitford supported her family by writing novels, plays, poems, and--most memorably--essays focused on everyday village life.

A prolific essayist and poet, British author Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) is also remembered for his travel books, religious writings, and nonsense verse for children. In "The Crooked Streets," he argues that the most vibrant parts of European cities are not the squares and boulevards but the many winding streets with curious names.

During the Civil War, Louisa May Alcott served for six weeks as a nurse in the Union Hospital at Georgetown, and her letters home during this period served as the basis for her first successful book, "Hospital Sketches." In this excerpt, she records the final days of a "stately looking" Virginia blacksmith named John, a man who "seldom spoke,...

In the essay "Deaths of Little Children," Leigh Hunt observes that "it is always false consolation to tell people that because they cannot help a thing, they are not to mind it."

This short piece on the familiar essay was one of Virginia Woolf's first published works.

Of the "innumerable causes" of decayed or destroyed friendships, Samuel Johnson examines five in particular.

Drafted by Thomas Jefferson and revised by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others, the Declaration of Independence is a classic example of a deductive argument. The basic premises stated in the first two paragraphs are followed by evidence (presented in list fashion reinforced by anaphora) that leads inexorably to the logical conclusion in...

Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was signed by 100 women and men at the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Following the model of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, this revolutionary document called for the repeal of laws that enforced unequal treatment...

In "Defence and Happiness of Married Life," Addison (a bachelor at the time) adopts the persona of Philogamus (literally, "a lover of marriage") to delineate the advantages and pleasures of being a married man.

In "A Defense of Slang," Gelett Burgess likens American slang to poetry--"a picturesque element that spices the language with enthusiasm."

From Discourse VIII of "The Idea of a University" comes "A Definition of a Gentleman," a superb example of character writing.

In this selection from "Timber; or Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter," Ben Jonson examines and classifies the "wits"--that is, the diverse talents and abilities of his contemporaries.

In this excerpt from the opening of John Ruskin's "Cestus of Aglaia," note in particular his awestruck description of a locomotive and his exploration of the questions, "what arts should be generally taught to the English boy and girl, by what methods, and to what ends?"

In this short essay, Bierce proposes a solution to the problem of "promiscuous, unsought and unauthorized introductions."

In this short comic essay, Robert Benchley uses a quirky example to refute the notion that insects do not think.

Moore's essay on the double entendre makes the point that women are "by no means inferior to the men in the happy talent of conveying the archest ideas imaginable in the most harmless words." Note how Moore's own double entendres gently undermine the avowed "purity" of his intentions.

In 1719, Defoe published the novel "Robinson Crusoe" and this essay, in which he challenges "one of the most barbarous customs in the world . . . that we deny the advantages of learning to women."

In the following letter-essay from "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" (1789), Gilbert White offers a precise and affectionate description of the Common House Martin.

In "Essays and Essayists," Henley identifies what he regards as the chief characteristics of those essayists who are "worth remembering" and "worth reading."

"The Essence of Humanism" is an extended definition leading to the conclusion that "ideas and concepts and scientific theories pass for true only so far as they harmoniously lead back to the world of sense."

Amos Bronson Alcott was a passionate educator, abolitionist, and advocate for women's rights in mid-19th century New England. "Exercise" is one of the longer "fragments" in Alcott's essay collection "Table-Talk," originally published in 1877.

Best known today for his novel "The Red Badge of Courage," Stephen Crane also endures as a significant figure in the development of modern literary journalism. His writings often blur the distinction between nonfiction writing and fiction. Though usually categorized as a short story, "Experiment in Misery" first appeared as an article in the...

Consider what lesson about the nature of perception is contained in "A Fable," by American humorist Mark Twain.

In this short essay, Joseph Addison relies on allegory to distinguish the truly humorous writer from the "imposter."

In "A Few Words on Christmas" (1822), English essayist Charles Lamb reflects on the food, drink, and music associated with the "season of mirth and cold weather."

In the first part of this essay, Hunt illustrates various ways in which "an ingenious lier in bed" might resist invitations to get up on a cold morning. In the rest of the essay, he offers strategies for persuading others to abandon the "enormous bliss" of a warm bed.

President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has been described as a prose poem, a prayer, and "the world’s foremost statement of freedom and democracy and the sacrifices required to achieve and defend them."

In this brief essay, noted satirist Ambrose Bierce expresses his "strong distaste" for forensic eloquence--"the art of saying things in such a way as to make them pass for more than they are worth."

In this short essay (an extended definition), Emerson encourages us to do some "high thinking" about the nature of both gift-giving and gift-receiving. As the critic David Herd has written, "Though it never actually loses sight of the act of giving which is his theme, Emerson's essay is really about the act of judgment."

"Gin-Shops," with its wealth of descriptive details and snippets of lively dialogue, offers one of the more memorable scenes in Charles Dickens's first book, "Sketches by Boz."

In "Give Her a Pattern," first published in 1929, D.H. Lawrence argues that modern man is "a fool" because of his failure to accept a woman as "a real human being."

In "A Glimpse of War's Hell Scenes," Whitman offers a brief yet vivid account of an incident that occurred in October 1864 near Upperville, Virginia.

In this narrative passage from Chapter 10 of his first autobiography, Frederick Douglass recounts "the turning-point" in his "career as a slave."

Here, in the essay "Going Out for a Walk" (1918), the Incomparable Max Beerbohm challenges the notion that walking is a productive mental exercise--especially if one is accompanied by a talkative companion.

Graves's autobiography, "Goodbye to All That," with its detailed descriptions of trench warfare, endures as one of the great memoirs of World War I. In the following excerpt, he discovers the implications of an old woman's lament, "Triste la Guerre" ("Sad, the war").

In this character study (originally published in 1919), Parker describes a type of person (a caricature, in fact) rather than an individual personality. In the final paragraphs, she appears to temper her satire with a degree of genuine sympathy.

In "Grace Before Meat," the great 19th-century essayist Charles Lamb questions the practice of saying grace before meals. "Gluttony and surfeiting," he argues, "are no proper occasions for thanksgiving."

From 1922 to 1927, George Orwell served in Burma as a member of the Indian Imperial Police. Out of that experience came this classic essay, "A Hanging."

In this essay, Goldsmith introduces three individuals (a slave, a famous cardinal, and a "silly fellow") to illustrate his thoughts on the nature of happiness.

"A Happy Home" is a selection from the last part of "The Pleasures of Opium" in Thomas De Quincey's masterpiece, "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater." The charmingly intimate atmosphere evoked by this descriptive piece stands in contrast to the nightmarish experiences that follow in "The Pain of Opium."

This second-person account of the spirits that occupy the "intermediate space" between sleeping and waking is one of the dark fables in Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales."

Mencken composed "The Hills of Zion" in July of 1925 while covering the notorious Scopes "Monkey Trial."

In this essay, the great Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift enumerates "the faults and errors" of those who lack the ability to participate in an agreeable conversation.

Published 16 months before his death, "Hours of Spring" was one of Jefferies' final compositions, written when he was too ill to go outdoors. Critic Samuel J. Looker said of this "fine yet pathetic" essay that "There is an almost feverish intensity about it, as if the writer knew that the sands of his life were running out."

In addition to being a great novelist, Mark Twain was one of the most popular public speakers of his day. In this address, Twain recounts his first public appearance--"the first and last time" he experienced stage fright.

"A genius of the South, novelist, folklorist, anthropologist"--those are the words that Alice Walker had inscribed on the tombstone of Zora Neale Hurston. In this essay, Hurston introduces herself.

As you read Beerbohm's parodies of the letters in a how-to book, decide whether you fit Joseph Epstein's description of the ideal Max Beerbohm reader.

In the narrative essay "How to Borrow Money" (1928), Stephen Leacock offers four "little scenes" to illustrate his thesis: "when you borrow, borrow a whole lot."

In the essay "How to Live to Be 200" (from the collection "Literary Lapses," 1910), Canadian author Stephen Leacock pokes fun at self-help books and health fads--which were almost as popular a century ago as they are now.

One of the most celebrated painters of his day, Sir Joshua Reynolds was also an eloquent writer and a close friend of Samuel Johnson. This essay (originally untitled) first appeared in Johnson's "The Idler" (No. 82, November 10, 1759).

In August 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the great march on Washington, where he delivered this memorable speech in front of 200,000 people gathered by the Lincoln Memorial and millions more who watched on television. In addition to being a central text of the Civil Rights Movement, the "I Have a Dream" speech is a model of effective...

John Kennedy's inaugural address is one of the most memorable political speeches of the past century. The young president's reliance on biblical quotations, metaphors, parallelism, and antithesis all recall some of the most powerful speeches of Abraham Lincoln. The most famous line in Kennedy's address ("Ask not . . .") is a classic example of...

Because a gift for oratory had helped propel him to the White House, expectations were high when President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 2009. And because the country was mired in a deep recession, hopes were even higher.

In the following essay, first published in 1894, naturalist John Burroughs reports on a visit to Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky.

In this 1932 essay "In Praise of Idleness," Bertrand Russell argues in favor of a four-hour working day. Consider whether his "arguments for laziness" deserve serious consideration today.

The nature of perception and thought, the subject of the short essay "Intellectual Ambition," is a topic that Santayana explored at length in his final great work, "The Realms of Being."

Margaret Fuller's two-part essay "The Irish Character" first appeared in "The New York Tribune," where she served as book reviewer, editor, and foreign correspondent.

Published in the last year of Celia Thaxter's life, "An Island Garden" demonstrates that nature writing can be both tender and precise. In this excerpt, Celia Thaxter describes a threatening storm and a small resurrection.

In this delightful parody of a critical essay, Joseph Dennie analyzes that "strangely overlooked" epic poem, "Jack and Gill" (better known today as the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill").

Combining close observation with personal reflection, Jefferies writes lyrically about the migratory impulses of birds and people.

In the first chapter of "The Land of Little Rain," Mary Austin describes the "lotus charm" of "the loneliest land that ever came out of God's hands."

In the opening paragraphs of "A Lark's Flight," Smith reflects on the popular appeal of public executions--"a movement of curiosity not altogether ignoble, but in some degree pathetic." Then, in an extended narrative, he recounts the events leading up to a hanging that he witnessed as a child.

Though generally categorized as a "nature writer," Thoreau was also a vocal opponent of slavery, and after passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 he assisted escaped slaves by way of the Underground Railway. This epideictic essay, an encomium to the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown, was written shortly after Brown was executed for...

"The Last Generation in England" offers a sketch of domestic life in a country town at the beginning of the 19th century. As in her most famous novel, "Cranford" (1853), Gaskell relies on her memories of growing up in Knutsford, a small town outside Manchester.

In these reflections on the nature of laughter and ridicule, British author Joseph Addison relies on the organizational strategy of comparison. Though in his introduction Addison expresses a preference for "the looseness and freedom of an essay," consider whether you agree that his composition lacks any "order or method."

In "A Law of Acceleration," the second-to-last chapter of "The Education of Henry Adams," Adams observed that whereas coal output served as the measure of progress in the 19th century, the dynamo would characterize the acceleration of progress in the 20th.

British statesman and diplomat Phillip Stanhope, better known as Lord Chesterfield, is remembered today for his letters to his son. Never intended for publication, the letters provide a guide to 18th-century notions of sophisticated social behavior and good manners.

In this excerpt from her memoir, Pember recounts the final moments of a young Confederate soldier named Fisher, "an especial favorite." Compare Pember's narrative with the deathbed scene described by Louisa May Alcott in "Death of a Soldier."

"A Liberal Education" is an excerpt from a longer essay, "A Liberal Education; and Where to Find It," which Huxley originally delivered in 1868 at the South London Working Men's College. Consider how his opening analogy--comparing life to a chess game--prepares us for his discussion of the value and purpose of education.

H.L. Mencken's attack on American architecture in "The Libido for the Ugly" endures as a powerful exercise in hyperbole and invective.

In this essay, American novelist Henry James recalls his first visit to the "dreadful, delightful" and "above all, overwhelming" city of London, where he later lived for more than 20 years.

In the following essay, originally published anonymously in 1874, entomologist Samuel Scudder recalls his first encounter with Professor Louis Agassiz, who subjected his research students to a rigorous exercise in close observation.

Biographer Robert D. Richardson, Jr., says that despite the faults of Thoreau's essay, "Love" is "refreshing in its desire to avoid sentimental cant."

In his review of "The Social Objectives of School English," H.L. Mencken employed his lively, combative style to skewer "the worst idiots" in "the slums of pedagogy": teachers of English.

"Lying Awake," a record of the author's fragmented memories and imaginings as he tries to fall asleep, might be characterized as both a "process essay" and a "collage essay."

In 1925, at the height of the period known as the Harlem Renaissance, African-American poet James Weldon Johnson composed this historical narrative for the magazine "Survey Graphic."

Widely recognized as one of England's greatest novelists, George Eliot (the pen name of Marian Evans) was also a notable poet and critic. In this review essay, Eliot compares two books published 50 years apart: Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792) and Margaret Fuller's "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" (published...

William Allen White's famous eulogy for his 16-year-old daughter originally appeared in the "Emporia Gazette" four days after her death in a horse-riding accident.

Early in the twentieth century, English novelist, poet, and essayist Maurice Hewlett was a popular writer of historical and romantic fiction. In "The Maypole and the Column," composed in 1922 as the preface to an essay anthology, he contrasts the traditional essay (metaphorically represented by the maypole) with the modern newspaper column.

Swift's short essay relies on extended comparison to convey a bleak view of human behavior.

Henry David Thoreau composed this journal entry on July 6, 1845, two days after taking up residence on the shore of Walden Pond. This short passage served as the basis for the second half of "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"--chapter two of Thoreau's master work, "Walden" (1854).

Here, assuming the guise of the common reader, Virginia Woolf offers "a few . . . ideas and opinions" about the nature of the English essay.

Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is generally considered to be the most famous satirical essay in the English language.

In this playful account of a commuter's experiences on a cold February morning, Christopher Morley finds a bit of magic in the mundane.

In this wrathful character sketch, Dickens describes the "instructive monomaniac" who presumes to know everything.

While serving as a staff writer for "The New Yorker" magazine, Parker wrote this review of Emily Post's popular advice book, "Etiquette." Notice how Parker uses brief examples and selected quotations from Post's book for humorous effect.

In this classification essay, Joseph Addison (writing as Isaac Bickerstaff) compares people's conversational styles to musical instruments.

In "The Mutability of Literature," Washington Irving reflects on the ever-changing nature of the English language and the limited shelf lives of most popular authors.

E.M. Forster's essay "My Wood," first published in 1926, encourages us to think about the nature of materialism and the seductive power of our possessions: "If you own things, what's their effect on you?"

This essay is an excerpt from chapter four of the first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (1859).

Mencken uses an extended narrative example to support his thesis that the police have every right to "crack the skulls" of suspected criminals.

In this reflective essay, originally published in 1887, George William Curtis uses the occasion of the new year to challenge conventional ideas about youth and age. You may find it rewarding to compare Curtis's essay with Charles Lamb's "New Year's Eve."

In the essay "New Year's Eve," which first appeared in the January 1821 issue of "The London Magazine," English author Charles Lamb reflects wistfully on the passage of time.

Although best known for his poetry, Rupert Brooke was also a skilled essayist. He composed this highly descriptive piece of travel writing during a tour of the United States and Canada in 1913.

In the haunting essay "Night Walks," Charles Dickens relies on personification and a number of striking analogies to convey the experience of walking London's streets after midnight.

William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel." In his acceptance speech, delivered at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm on December 10, 1950, he counseled young writers "to help man endure by lifting his heart."

In this "note" on the essay, Carl Van Doren discusses the limitless forms and topics available to the essayist. "What matters is the manner," he says, and the distinctive nature of the writer: "His truth must have a tone, his speech must have a rhythm which are his and solely his."

Leigh Hunt's collage essay "A 'Now': Descriptive of a Hot Day" was a favorite of poet John Keats, who was living with Hunt at the time it was written.

Thomas Fuller's intelligence and engaging wit are clearly evident in his meditation "Of Anger."

In "Of Conversation," British author H.G. Wells argues that the urge to "gabble" is nothing more than "a sign of insecurity."

In this essay on the art of rhetoric, Oliver Goldsmith challenges the conventional wisdom that effective oratory depends foremost on complex sentence structures and the sophisticated use of figurative language. Instead he advocates a "plain, open, loose style," particularly when addressing the "vulgar" on matters of faith and morality.

Critic Bonamy Dobree has characterized Abraham Cowley as England's "first really friendly essayist; he never pretends to be more enlightened or more exquisite in feeling than the average man." See if you agree as you read his essay "Of Greatness."

The follow essay is an excerpt from Chapter Three of Du Bois's revolutionary collection of essays, "The Souls of Black Folk," published in 1903. Here he criticizes "the old attitude of adjustment and submission" that had been articulated eight years earlier by Booker T. Washington in his "Atlanta Compromise Address."

Du Bois's moving recollection of the birth and death of his son originally appeared in his revolutionary essay collection, "The Souls of Black Folk."

A notable jurist who served as both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England, Bacon argues in his essay "Of Revenge" that the "wild justice" of personal revenge is a fundamental challenge to the rule of law.

In the essay "Of Simplicity and Refinement in Writing," Hume considers the merits and deficiencies of the ornamented Asiatic style of writing in contrast to the plainer Attic style.

After describing the discontent of those who lose themselves in dreams of "future felicity," Johnson encourages his younger readers "to make use at once of the spring of the year, and the spring of life."

Francis Bacon, the first major English essayist, comments forcefully on the value of reading and learning.

When Bacon published this version of "Of Travel" in 1625, European travel was already part of the education of many young aristocrats.

In this short essay from "Resolves," Felltham considers the various benefits of travel, while cautioning the reader that "unless a man has judgment to direct him, he will, at his return, find all his labour lost."

In the essay "Ogres," the author of "Vanity Fair" relies on comparison and analogy to develop his social satire.

Shortly after Arthur Help's death in 1875, a critic wrote that "such essays as 'The Art of Living With Others' will continue to be printed and reprinted as long as men are human enough to need the help of those who know their weakness because of sharing it."

In his essay "On Being an Alien," originally published in 1921, less than three years after the end of World War I, Robert Lynd examines the "anti-foreign feeling which is already vehement enough in most of us, and which must be tamed into moderation if the world is to be civilised."

In this slyly comic essay, originally published in 1756, Cowper describes "the faults in discourse and behavior" of several types of unappealing conversationalists.

In this essay, originally published in 1821, William Hazlitt takes a skeptical view of large corporations. Consider, in particular, his description of the damaging effects of corporate life on the individual.

American humorist Mark Twain composed this essay "On the Art of Lying" for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, Connecticut.

Here--in an essay developed with examples, analogies, and personification--Charles Brooks offers an extended comparison of wit and humor.

Browne's essay "On Dreams" exhibits both his wealth of learning and rhetorically sophisticated prose style.

In the first paragraph of this selection from "Timber," Jonson outlines his philosophy of education, arguing against home schooling and corporal punishment. In the second paragraph, he explains how practice and imitation may teach a person how to "write well."

Originally published in 1822, not long after the death of Hazlitt's father, the essay "On the Fear of Death" deals squarely and unsentimentally with the brute facts of human mortality. Yet Hazlitt attempts to provide a kind of dark comfort in the observation that after "our hearts cease to beat," the world "goes on as usual, and thinks no more...

William Hazlitt composed his essay "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth" three years before his death in 1830.

In his short essay "On Giving Advice," Joseph Addison considers the persuasive power of fables.

The version of William Hazlitt that emerges from his essays--witty, passionate, plain speaking--continues to attract devoted readers. As Robert Louis Stevenson observed in his essay "Walking Tours," Hazlitt's "On Going a Journey" is "so good that there should be a tax levied on all who have not read it."

"On Going to Bed" illustrates one of Morley's favorite rhetorical strategies: using figurative language, in particular metaphor and personification, to amplify his discussion of a common subject.

In the preface to his essay collection "Some Notes of a Struggling Genius," Street wrote that "there is a cheerful vulgarity about [these trifles] which I am glad to have achieved; I have even a faint hope that they may be called 'breezy.'" One of the breeziest essays in that collection is "On Healthy Exercise," developed with a series of comic...

In the essay "On Keeping a Secret," published in 1756, Cowper relies on examples and classification to illustrate "the different methods by which Secrets are communicated."

In the following essay, drawn from "The Note-Books of Samuel Butler," the British novelist encourages us to be honest about expressing our likes and dislikes--"to make sure of our ground and be quite certain that we really do like a thing before we say we do."

As you read Christopher Morley's short essay (originally published in 1920, shortly after the end of World War I), consider whether your definition of laziness is the same as the author's.

White's lyrical prose presents the forest as "a luminous and mysterious place in which 'his deep physical joy' makes him forget his fatigue."

In his essay "On National Prejudices," Goldsmith argues that it is possible to love one's own country "without hating the natives of other countries."

Though she never achieved fame, Louise Imogen Guiney is admired today for her independent voice and graceful style. Her essay "On a Pleasing Encounter With a Pickpocket," originally published in 1893, transforms a street crime in London into an exhilarating personal triumph.

In this essay from the collection "Chimney-Pot Papers" (1919), Charles S. Brooks relies on personification and description to convey the pleasures of a rainstorm in the city.

As noted in the dedication of his comic masterpiece, "Tom Jones" (1749), Henry Fielding's goal was "to recommend goodness and innocence" through comedy and satire--a theme he explored in the essay "On Reading for Amusement" (1752).

When the great earthquake struck San Francisco on the morning of April 18, 1906, philosopher William James was profoundly affected not only by the terrible devastation but also by the heroic human response to this natural disaster.

In this narrative passage from her autobiography, "Living My Life" (1931), anarchist Emma Goldman recounts her desperate attempt to raise money by working as a prostitute on 14th Street in Manhattan. The money was needed to finance "Sasha" Berkman's plot to assassinate "America's most hated man," wealthy industrialist Henry Clay Frick.

In an essay that first appeared in 1753, Samuel Johnson explores some of the themes introduced by Francis Bacon in "Of Studies" (1625). Compare Bacon's terse aphoristic style with Johnson's more expansive prose.

In this well-known essay, Robinson employs classification to convey his thesis that for the most part "our convictions on important matters . . . are pure prejudices in the proper sense of that word. We do not form them ourselves. They are the whisperings of 'the voice of the herd.'"

In this excerpt from his long philosophical essay "Utilitarianism," John Stuart Mill relies on strategies of classification and division to defend the utilitarian doctrine that "happiness is the sole end of human action."

In this argumentative essay, composed in 1777, James Boswell rejects the "heroic sentiments" of poets who glorify war.

When Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined $100 for casting an illegal vote in the 1872 presidential election, she refused to pay, defending her actions in the speech that follows. Note her reliance on parallelism and antithetical structures to convey her forceful message.

In this excerpt from his autobiography, African-American poet James Weldon Johnson recounts a visit to Salt Lake City in 1905 and his encounters with overt discrimination.

In this essay, originally published in 1922, novelist and master mariner Joseph Conrad considers the merits of a prose style significantly different from his own.

The argumentative essay "Parental Affection" was originally published as chapter 10 of Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Woman," one of the first major works of feminist philosophy.

Although largely forgotten today, Agnes Repplier was for several decades one of America's most popular essayists. She wrote this spirited defense of the "light essay" in 1894, at the height of her fame. But by the onset of World War I, Repplier herself acknowledged that this "genteel" form of the essay had fallen out of fashion.

In this excerpt from "Democracy in America," Alexis de Tocqueville identifies two kinds of patriotism and points out the special characteristics of each.

It has been said that George Santayana "prefers literary imprecision to pedantry," especially in his pithy, aphoristic essays. Compare his thoughts on patriotism with those expressed by Oliver Goldsmith (in his essay "On National Prejudices") and by Max Eastman (in "What Is Patriotism?").

Virginia Woolf considers the relationship between a writer and her readers: to what extent should a writer keep her audience in mind when she writes--and which audience should that be?

Consider how (and why) Mencken injects humor into his discussion of a grim subject.

In "The Perfect Holiday," Lucas imagines joining the circus for a fortnight to play the role of "a great man"--Pimpo, the clown.

In "The Persistence of Youth," originally published in 1901, Street examines the phenomenon of the extended adolescence of the British male: "At the present time he is a boy up to about thirty-five, a young man up to fifty, and he is hardly regarded as old until he has exceeded David's maximum of life by six or seven years."

Originally published in 1903, "The Ph.D. Octopus" by Harvard philosopher William James offers a powerful critique of the "tyrannical Machine" of graduate education and the growing obsession with examinations, diplomas, and "decorative titles."

As the title suggests, Wilde's "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" is a collection of witty aphorisms. Joseph Pearce, one of Wilde's biographers, has argued that these epigrams "were not intended to be taken seriously." See if you agree.

In this short essay, English author and critic G. K. Chesterton relies on two common items--brown paper and a piece of chalk--as starting points for some thought-provoking meditations.

In this witty essay, British author H.G. Wells combines strategies of classification and process analysis as he examines the four principles of quarreling effectively.

In "The Pleasures of Ignorance," Robert Lynd draws on examples from nature to demonstrate his thesis that the "great pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions."

In "Pleasures Natural and Fantastical," Bishop Berkeley employs comparisons and examples to develop his thesis on the nature of happiness.

Originally published in 1880, "The Plumber" is a late example of character-writing--a generalized but detailed description of the appearance and behavior of a class or type.

The essay "Portrait of an Ideal World," a proposal to keep "the whole human race" mildly intoxicated "year in and year out," was H.L. Mencken's fanciful response to Prohibition and "the unjust and insane provisions" of the Volstead Act.

In "Professorial Ethics" (originally published in 1910), Chapman argues that big business has taken over higher education in America: college presidents have become "sycophants" to millionaires while "overworked and underpaid" professors are "trampled upon." Yet it is the professor's responsibility, Chapman says, to "teach the nation to respect...

In the narrative essay "Quality," published in 1912, John Galsworthy depicts a German craftsman's efforts to survive in an era where success is determined "by adverdisement, nod by work."

Originally published in the "Spectator" in 1712, Richard Steele's account of 24 hours in the life of London conveys the city's diversity and restlessness.

Both the subject matter and the didactic nature of Bulwer-Lytton's essay "Readers and Writers" invite comparisons with Francis Bacon's "Of Studies" and Samuel Johnson's "On Studies."

In "Recollections," Richard Steele reflects on the pleasure of remembering the lives of friends and family members who have died.

In the essay "Red-Bloods and Mollycoddles" (1915), Dickinson offers an extended contrast between two broad categories of humankind. Note how he uses examples to add life to the types (or caricatures) he has introduced.

Limitation is one of the themes of "A Relic," a narrative essay originally published in 1918. The fragment of a fan found in a battered suitcase leads Max Beerbohm to recall his "first effort to write" and his "first hopes of excellence."

Southey's final, unfinished work, "The Doctor, etc.," is a grand commonplace book--a seven-volume collection of miscellaneous articles and essays. "Retirement," one of the short pieces in "The Doctor," is developed with a series of engaging examples.

As recounted in Chapter One of "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth," the Anglo-Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats spent his early years with his mother's family in Sligo. Though "fragmentary," the descriptions and anecdotes gathered here offer some vivid character sketches as well as a memorable impression of a child's view of the world.

Here, in the final three paragraphs of a lengthy review, D'Israeli casts scorn on the "self-delusion" of a man who "is forgotten faster than he writes." The reviewer then closes with a prescient observation about the "epidemical rage for auto-biography" that he fears may soon break out.

In the following dispatch, which appeared in the "Metropolitan" magazine in fall 1913, John Reed offers a memorable profile of the revolutionary general Francisco ("Pancho") Villa.

In recent years, especially since the republication of "Rural Hours" in an unabridged edition, Susan Fenimore Cooper has come to be recognized as a significant figure in the tradition of American nature writing. Here she focuses on the "trifling incidents" observed at the end of a "charming day" in late June.

In his historic Second Inaugural Address--just 700 words delivered in seven minutes--Abraham Lincoln gave what some have called a sermon and others his last will and testament to America.

In this essay, which originally appeared under the heading "A College Magazine" (1887), British novelist Robert Louis Stevenson describes how he learned to write by "play[ing] the sedulous ape"--imitating the distinctive styles of numerous great writers.

One of Emerson's central doctrines--"Trust thyself"--is the theme developed in his well-known essay on "Self-Reliance."

In the humorous essay "Shaking Hands," Edward Everett relies on the organizing principle of classification.

In this letter to the renowned British actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, dramatist George Bernard Shaw recounts his mother's funeral service and cremation with humor and affection.

Here, in an essay published in 1888, poet Walt Whitman offers many examples of slang expressions and "luxuriant" place names--all representative of "the wholesome fermentation or eructation of those processes eternally active in language."

Compare Strunsky's views on exercise and "the hygienic life" with those expressed by Canadian essayist Stephen Leacock in "How to Live to Be 200." Both essays were originally published in 1910.

In the first part of "Spring," Hunt reflects on the "beautiful word" itself, comparing it to the Italian word for spring, "primavera." His thoughts then turn to mortality and our obligation to "behave ourselves" on earth in return for this "promise of a renewed year."

In "The Story of a Garden," Wright combines the whimsy of personification with the precise technical knowledge of an experienced gardener.

Novelist and journalist Jack London offers a first-person account of the fiery aftermath of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.

Novelist George Eliot asks, "Why should a story not be told in the most irregular fashion that an author's idiosyncrasy may prompt?"

In this essay by English novelist Virginia Woolf, the quest to buy a pencil serves as an occasion to contrast "street sauntering," with its sense of carefree wandering, with "street haunting," which hints at the more disturbing aspects of walking in the city.

"Street Yarn," originally published in 1856, consists of a series of brief character sketches: physical descriptions of certain professional types (ministers, Wall Street brokers, prostitutes) and of individuals well known to Whitman and many of his readers.

At bottom, the pathos of H.L. Mencken's "Suite Americaine" sketches derives from the same perspective that inspired his more overtly satirical essays: the "eternal war," as he saw it, "of experience and aspiration--the contrast between the world as it is and the world as it might be or ought to be"

Consider what compels Chesterton, in "The Superstition of School," to conclude that "without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman's education is complete."

"Superstitions and Recollections of Childhood" is an excerpt from chapter nine of "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table."

In this short essay, Santayana makes the claim that every "intelligent man . . . holds a lunatic in leash."

Composed in 1900, Yeats's influential essay "The Symbolism of Poetry" offers an extended definition of symbolism and a meditation on the nature of poetry in general.

In this short essay, British novelist and journalist Mark Rutherford (the pen name of William Hale White) encourages us to deal with our misfortunes by practicing "the art of self-suppression."

Should all young people be required to attend college or university? That's the question explored in this dream essay by Benjamin Franklin--composed when he was just 16 years old.

In this letter to a younger acquaintance, Benjamin Franklin refutes conventional wisdom and argues that couples who marry at a young age "stand the best chance of happiness."

A popular literary form in 17th-century England was the character--a brief sketch of a type or class of person. In 1628, John Earle, a tutor to Prince Charles, published a collection of these character sketches under the title "Microcosmographie." These three characters--a Young Man, a Tedious Man, and a Good Old Man--originally appeared in...

Although his essays are now commonly regarded as quaint and sentimental, "The Town Week" offers signs of the darker personality that lay behind E.V. Lucas's urbane persona.

In his "Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding," the great Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift argues that "rules for common behaviour" are necessary only because good sense "is a gift which very few among mankind are possessed of."

An English bishop and the author of numerous devotional works, Joseph Hall is credited with initiating the 17th-century fashion for character-writing. Though he is famous for his plain, Senecan style, the staccato rhythms of his prose were considered by some (including John Milton) to be monotonously tiresome.

In the essay "Truth of Intercourse," Robert Louis Stevenson reflects on the nature of sincerity and the art of effective communication

In this chapter from her autobiography, Margaret Sanger relates how her social conscience was awakened by the plight of poverty-stricken young women who endured--and often eventually died from--the "chronic condition" of pregnancy.

In this narrative essay (or anecdote), which originally appeared (in longer form) in one of the "Roundabout Papers" (1860), the British novelist William Makepeace Thackeray alludes to his own painful separation from his mother.

In this short excerpt from his memoir about growing up alongside the Mississippi River, Mark Twain considers what may be lost as well as gained through knowledge and experience.

In "The Tyranny of Things," originally published in 1893 (a time of severe economic depression in the United States), Edward Sandford Martin argues that by mistaking luxuries for necessities, we "swamp ourselves with . . . vain possessions that we cannot afford." Consider how Martin uses comparisons throughout the essay to illustrate and support...

In "Under the Early Stars," Alice Meynell evokes a child's view of the world with sympathy and understanding.

After three-and-a-half years as theater critic for the weekly "Saturday Review," George Bernard Shaw published this humorous farewell.

Most authors are forgotten, Samuel Johnson says in this essay, "because they never deserved to be remembered." Consider the implications of Johnson's remark that libraries provide the most striking evidence of "the vanity of human hopes."

In this essay, part two of "Virginibus Puerisque," Robert Louis Stevenson explores the differences between hope (which "lives on ignorance") and faith (which "is built upon a knowledge of our life"). With this thought in mind, he says, a man must recognize that a woman is "a creature of equal, if of unlike, frailties; whose weak human heart...

Stevenson says, "We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts--namely, to live."

Henry Mayhew wrote many successful novels but is best known today for his social survey, "London Labour and the London Poor." His aim was to "consider the whole of the metropolitan poor under three separate phases, according as they will work, they can't work, and they won't work." One of those who "will work" was the eight-year-old girl who...

Originally published in 1885, "A Wet Night in London" combines fragmented impressions of hopelessness with vivid descriptions of people and places.

Compare Max Eastman's extended definition with Alexis de Tocqueville's discussion of patriotism in "Democracy in America" (1835) and with the thoughts of Oliver Goldsmith in his essay "On National Prejudices" (1763).

A severe critic of secondary education, Shaw argued that school should be purely voluntary and conducted only by charitable organizations.

In 1905, after gaining fame with his novel "The Call of the Wild," Jack London published this account of his efforts to "climb up out of the working-class" and and enjoy "all that gave decency and dignity to life." As you read this autobiographical essay, consider the causes of London's disillusionment and the significance of the title, "What...

Composed by young Jonathan Swift in 1699, this list of resolutions was found among Swift's papers after his death in 1745.

Before reading "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" (the second half of chapter two of "Walden"), you might want to take a look at Thoreau's short journal entry for July 6, 1845, "Meeting the Vital Facts of Life." That entry served as the basis for this well-known passage.

In this essay, which first appeared in "The New Yorker" magazine in 1929, Thurber introduces several examples to demonstrate both his fascination and frustration with a familiar English pronoun.

American statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) explains how an extravagant purchase in his childhood taught him a lesson for life.

In "Who Owns the Mountains?" Henry Van Dyke explores the concepts of "spiritual poverty" and true ownership.

Here Bennett argues that a "classic" work is one that "gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature."

Drawn from Chapter 31 of Orwell's first book, "Down and Out in Paris and London," this short essay invites us to explore our own attitudes to the "ordinary human beings" known today as "the homeless."

In his essay "Why Law Is Indispensable" (published in this revised form in 1907), Shaw argues that laws, although necessary, are not "immutable principles of good and evil."

In this encomium to the philosopher and psychologist William James, John Jay Chapman fulfills his wish to help "the general atmosphere of thought and [enrich] everyone a little."

"When we try to pick out anything by itself," John Muir once wrote, "we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." That spirit of communion is vividly conveyed in this first-hand account of an "exhilarating" storm in the Sierra mountains, which Muir observed from his perch at the top of a fir tree.

In "A Word for Autumn," first published in 1919, the creator of Winnie the Pooh attends playfully to the "precious root" that represents "the general blessings of the autumn"--celery.

As you read the essay "Words" (originally published in 1896), consider what Agnes Repplier reveals about her own tastes in literary subject matter and style.

Between 1704 and 1713, novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe produced the "Review," one of the first literary and political periodicals in England. In the issue of October 4, 1707, he offered this forthright response to the question, "What is the worst sort of husband a sober woman can marry?"

In this entry from her diary, novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf examines the value of diary writing: "It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles."

In this essay, American author Charles Stephen Brooks identifies the key characteristics of a good essayist--an omnivorous reader, a tolerant thinker, and "a kind of poet . . . whose wings are clipped."

In "The Writing of Essays," H.G. Wells offers a light-hearted view of the "art of the essayist": "so simple . . . that one must needs wonder why all men are not essayists."

In this parody of self-help books, originally published in 1922, humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the persuasive power of the second-person point of view.

In the famous conclusion to "The Renaissance," Walter Pater says, "To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."