Showing results for "The Essays" in Literary History & Criticism

In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death.

Michel de Montaigne was a contemporary of Shakespeare who, after having played his part in France's terrible wars of religion, retired to his estates and decided to write about what he knew best--himself. And so in his likes and dislikes, his reflections on history, his loves and his travels, he brought to life, not just one man, but all human experience. "What do I know?" he asked. If not himself and his own soul, then nothing else.

A wide-ranging selection of George Orwell's essays, written in the clear-eyed, passionate and uncompromising style that has earned him a reputation as one of Britain's greatest writers.

This program is read by actor and singer-songwriter Maya Hawke, star of Netflix's Stranger Things. "Narrating in a voice as clear and sustaining as a cool glass of water, Hawke’s unflashy approach allows the words to reveal their magic."—The Orange County Register "Didion’s timeless essays...

In the realm of psychology, the concept of imagination has often lingered in a semi-mythological state, evading clear scientific understanding. Traditionally viewed as an elusive quality reserved for the geniuses of society, imagination has been shrouded in mystique. Yet, as M. Ribot masterfully articulates, this notion is misleading. Imagination is not a celestial gift but a fundamental function of the human mind, present to varying degrees in everyone—from commercial innovators and pragmatic leaders to the most eccentric romantic dreamers. The key distinction lies not in the existence of ...

Named a Best Book of 2025 by The New Yorker, TIME, Vanity Fair, and Kirkus Reviews One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025 "Smart, somber . . . There’s pleasure in watching a novelist wired to see all sides at once wrangle with her own dynamic subjectivity." - The New York Times Book...

Originally published in 1966, Susan Sontag's first collection of essays is a modern classic and includes the famous essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation", as well as, her impassioned discussions of Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, Levi-Strauss, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thought.

Melissa Lucashenko is one of Australia's most admired and awarded novelists. She is renowned for writing about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead. This timely collection of essays and journalism - published together for the first time - spans two turbulent decades. With her trademark wit and wisdom, Lucashenko reflects on being caught in a siege, on the marginalised lives of prisoners and the urban poor, on Blak identity, Australian literature and on meeting her writing idol.

Scaachi Koul deploys her razor-sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with Internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents.

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the...

After Andrea Dworkin, the famous feminist philosopher and activist, passed away, her chief critic, Susie Bright, who many perceived as Dworkin's opposite, published a stirring obituary and series of essays in which she described the ways that Dworkin was a catalyst for the sex-positive movement in contemporary feminism.

This captivating essay by Harold Laski, a renowned figure in the British socialist movement, offers an in-depth examination of Karl Marxs life and philosophy. Born in Manchester in 1893, Laski was an influential member of the Fabian Society and the Socialist League faction of the Labour Party. As a professor at the London School of Economics, he mentored numerous politicians, including leaders of post-war Asia and Africas independence movements, and Ralph Milliband, father of the current Labour Party leader, Ed Milliband. Laskis political views, which encompassed democratic socialism, ...

As geek culture goes mainstream - from Game of Thrones to the Avengers - it's never been more important to look at the role women play in it and the future they're helping to create. And Kameron is the smart, funny, and profane voice we need to guide listeners through the world of fandom and the coming revolution in pop culture.

Dive into the enchanting world of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia, two captivating collections of essays by the talented Charles Lamb. First published in The London Magazine from 1820 to 1825, these essays quickly became beloved classics, delighting readers with their personal and conversational style. Lamb, who embodies the persona of Elia, shares his reflections alongside his sister Mary, affectionately dubbed Cousin Bridget. The name Elia is inspired by an old Italian clerk from Lambs workplace at the South-Sea House in the early 1790s. While some essays reference Lambs contemporaries and ...

Le Guin’s sharp and witty voice is on full display in this collection of twenty-four essays, revised by the author a decade after its initial publication in 1979. The collection covers a wide range of topics and Le Guin’s origins as a writer, her advocacy for science fiction and fantasy as mediums for true literary exploration, the writing of her own major works such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her role as a public intellectual and educator.

Dive into the insightful world of John Churton Collins, a distinguished literary critic who lived from 1848 to 1908. Appointed as the professor of English literature at Birmingham University in 1904, Collins offers a fascinating exploration of the lives of English and German authors, ranging from the iconic William Shakespeare to the celebrated Alfred, Lord Tennyson. His essays were crafted as a response to Thomas Carlyles On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1840). After his passing, his son, L.C. Collins, meticulously curated these writings from various sources, preserving his...

Gore Vidal - novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist - is America’s premier man of letters. No other writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.

Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.

Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticism, and interviews, as well as the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964), hailed by Robert Penn Warren as “a...

The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick is a companion collection to The Collected Essays, a book that proved a revelation of what, for many, had been an open secret: that Elizabeth Hardwick was one of the great American literary critics, and an extraordinary stylist in her own right. The thirty-five pieces that Alex Andriesse has gathered here-none previously featured in volumes of Hardwick's work-make it clear that her powers extended far beyond literary criticism.