This anthology shows the essay form at its most varied and dramatic, arranged chronologically and written by some of our most engaging authors.

Purposefully concise, it gathers together exemplars of the personal narrative, the argument, the anecdotal essay, digressive discourse, the “open letter,” and others.

Included in the collection are essays by George Orwell, W. H. Auden, Bruno Bettelheim, Eudora Welty, Martin Luther King Jr., Joan Didion, Edward Abbey, Leo Marx, I. F. Stone, Pico Iyer, Amy Tan, Lewis Thomas, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann S. Causey, Carl Sagan, Ellen Ullman, and Opal Palmer Adisa.