The essay is one of the richest of literary forms. Its most obvious characteristics are freedom, informality, and the personal touch - though it can also find room for poetry, satire, fantasy, and sustained argument.
All these qualities, and many others, are on display in The Oxford Book of Essays. The most wide-ranging collection of its kind to appear for many years, it includes 140 essays by 120 writers: classics, curiosities, meditations, diversions, old favourites, recent examples that deserve to be better known. A particularly welcome feature is the amount of space allotted to American essayists, from Benjamin Franklin to John Updike and beyond.
This is an anthology that opens with wise words about the nature of truth, and closes with a consideration of the novels of Judith Krantz. Some of the other topics discussed in its pages are anger, pleasure, Gandhi, Beau Brummell, wasps, party-going, gangsters, plumbers, Beethoven, potato crisps, the importance of being the right size, and the demolition of Westminster Abbey. It contains some of the most eloquent writing in English, and some of the most entertaining.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
SIR FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
Of Truth
Of Revenge
Of Boldness
Of Innovations
Of Masques and Triumphs
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY (1581-1613)
A Chambermaid
A Fair and Happy Milkmaid
JOHN EARLE (?1601-65)
An Antiquary
A Good Old Man
A Pot-Poet
OWEN FELLTHAM (?1602-68)
How the Distempers of these Times should affect wise Men
SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-82)
On Dreams
THOMAS FULLER (1608-61)
Of Anger
SAMUEL BUTLER (1612-80)
A Degenerate Noble
JEREMY TAYLOR (1613-67)
Of Charity, or the Love of God
ABRAHAM COWLEY (1618-67)
Of Avarice
JOHN DRIDDEN (1631-1700)
‘Chaucer’ (from Preface to the Fables)
JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)
Good Manners and Good Breeding
A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick
JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719)
Thoughts in Westminster Abbey
The Royal Exchange
Sir Roger in Westminster Abbey
Sir Roger at Vauxhall
SIR RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729)
On Recollections of Childhood
LORD CHESTERFIELD (1694-1773)
Upon Affectation
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-90)
The Levee
HENRY FIELDING (1707-54)
The Poor and the Betters
SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-84)
Dignity and Uses of Biography
Conversation
Debtor’s Prisons (1)
Debtor’s Prisons (2)
DAVID HUME (1711-76)
Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature
OLIVER GOLDSMITH (?1730-74)
On Dress
A Little Great Man
On National Prejudices
JAMES BOSWELL (1740-95)
On War
CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834)
Dream Children
from On Some of the Old Actors
WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830)
On the Pleasure of Hating
Brummelliana
LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859)
Getting Up on Cold Mornings
THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859)
The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881)
from Signs of the Times
LORD MACAULAY (1800-59)
from Lord Clive
SIR HENRY TAYLOR (1800-86)
On Secrecy
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (1801-90)
Secular Knowledge not a Principe of Action
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-82)
The Conservative
NATHANIE HAWTHORNE (1804-62)
The Haunted Mind
JOHN STUAT MILL (1806073)
‘Bentham and Coleridge’ (from Coleridge)
CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70)
City of London Churches
WILLIAM MAKKPEACE THACKERAY (1811-63)
Autour de mon Chapeau
ANTHONY TROLLOPE (1815-82)
The Plumber
HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-62)
Night and Moonlight
JAMES ANTHONY FROUD (1818-94)
The Philosophy of Christianity
GEORGE ELIOT (1819-80)
Thomas Carlyle
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-88)
Heine and the Philistines (from Heinrich Heine)
T. H. HUXLEY (1825-95)
from Evolution and Ethics
WALTER BAGEHOT (1826-77)
Dull Government
MARK RUTHERFORD (1831-1913)
Talking about our Troubles
SIR LESLIE STEPHEN (1832-1902)
On Knowing what Gives us Pleasure
MARK TWAIN (1835-62)
Thoughts of God
WALTER PATER (1839-94)
Sandro Botticelli
W. H. HUDSON (1841-1922)
Wasps
AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-?1914)
Disintroductions
WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910)
The Ph.D. Octopus
HENRY JAMES (1843-1916)
from London
ALICE MEYNELL (1847-1922)
Under the Early Stars
RICHARD JEFFERIES (1848-87)
The Acorn-Gatherer
ROBERT LOUIS STVENSON (1850-94)
Aes Triplex
OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)
‘The True Critic’ (from The Critic as Artist)
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950)
Sir George Grove
JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)
The Censor of Plays
JAMES G. HUNEKER (1860-1921)
A Visit to Walt Whitman
JOHN JAY CHAPMAN (1862-1933)
William James
GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863-1952)
Intellectual Ambition
Intuitive Morality
ARTHUR SYMONS (1865-1945)
Cordova
HILAIRE BELLOC (1870-1953)
On the Departure of a Guest
BERTRAND RUSSELL (1872-1970)
On Being Modern-Mindd
SIR MAX BEERBOHM (1872-1956)
‘A Clergyman’
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL (1873-1965)
The Dream
G. K. CHESTERTON (1874-1936)
A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls
On Sandals and Simplicity
SIR DESMOND MCCARTHY (1879-1952)
Invective
E. M. FORSTER (1879-1970)
My Own Centenary
LYTTON STRACHEY (1880-1956)
The Libido for the Ugly
Funeral March
ROSE MACAULAY (1881-1958)
Evening Parties
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941)
Harriette Wilson
The Death of the Moth
JAMES STEPHENS (1882-1950)
Finnegans Wake
G. M. YOUNG (1882-1959)
The Greatest Victorian
D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930)
Insouciance
MARIANNE MOORE (1887-1972)
What There is to See at the Zoo
T. S. ELIOT (1888-1965)
Marie Lloyd
SIR LEWIS NAMIER (1888-1960)
Symmetry and Repetition
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER (1890-1980)
The Necessary Enemy
REBECCA WEST (1892-1983)
The Sterner Sex
JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH (1893-1970)
The Colloid and the Crystal
J. B. S. HALDANE (1892-1964)
On Being the Right Size
ALDOUS HUSLEY (1894-1963)
Meditation on the Moon
JAMES THURBER (1894-1961)
My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage
J. B. PRIESTLEY (1894-1984)
The Toy Farm
ROBERT GRAVES (1895-1985)
The Case for Xanthippe
EDMUND WILSON (1895-1972)
A Preface to Persius
E. B. WHITE (1899-1985)
About Myself
V. S. PRITCHETT (1900-97)
Our Half-Hogarth
CYRIL CONNOLLY (1903-74)
The Anti-Lion
GEORGE ORWELL (1903-50)
Reflections on Gandhi
EVELYN WAUGH (1903-66)
Well-Informed-Circles … and How to Move in Them
GRAHAM GREENE (1904-91
The Lost Childhood
LIONEL TRILLING (1905-75)
Adams at Ease
SIR JOHN BETJEMAN (1906-84)
A New Westminster
SIR WILLIAM EMPSON (1906-84)
The Faces of Buddha
LOREN EISELEY (1907-77)
The Snout
JACQUES BARZUN (1907- )
What If ---? English versus German and French
MAURICE RICHARDSON (1907-78)
In Search of Nib-Joy
M. F. K. FISHER (1908-92)
Young Hunger
SIR ISAIAH BERLIN (1909-98)
Churchill and Roosevelt (from Winston Churchill in 1940)
LEWIS THOMAS (1913-93)
To Err is Human
RANDALL JARRELL (1914-65)
Bad Poets
H. R. TREVOR-ROPER (1914- )
Thomas Hobbes
ELIZABETH HARDWICK (1916- )
The Apotheosis of Martin Luther King
ROBERT WARSHOW (1917-55)
The Gangster as Tragic Hero
RICHARD COBB (1917-96)
The Homburg Hat
CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN (1917- )
The People’s Victor
PAULINE KAEL (1919- )
Movies on Television
D. J. ENRIGHT (1920- )
The Marquis and the Madame
PHILIP LARKIN (1922085)
The Savage Seventh
RAYNER BANHAM (1922-88)
The Crisp at the Crossroads
JAMES BALDWIN (1924-87)
Stranger in the Village
GORE VIDAL (1925- )
Robert Graves and the Twelve Caesars
JAN MORRIS (1926- )
La Paz
DAN JACOBSON (1929- )
A Visit from Royalty
P. J. KAVANAGH (1931- )
Is It Alas, Yorick?
V. S. NAIPAUL (1932- )
Columbus and Crusoe
JOHN UPDIKE (1932- )
The Bankrupt Man
JOHN DIDION (1934- )
At the Dam
JOSEPH EPSTEIN (1937- )
About Face
CLIVE JAMES (1939- )
A Blizzard of Tiny Kisses
"A vast, wonderful company." - Michael Foot,The Observer
"From the thousands of essays and pieces available nobody would choose the same...but I doubt if anyone would have chosen better" - Frank Kermode, Independent on Sunday
"The selection has nothing in it that is not of the top class...John Gross has the shrewdest possible eye for what practitioners in the genre can do best with a sense of form and culture, of humour and balance...Every essay here is a pleasure to read." - John Bayley, Times Literary Supplement
"John Gross's achievement is to see the essay as an essentially modern medium which addresses us as directly and potently as the newspaper." - Barbara Everett, The Independent
ISBN : 9780199556557
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