What essays from English writers do you recommend?

Question

I am supposed to do plenty of reading on sociology, art, philosophy and politics by different English essayists.

Answer 1

The word essay derives from the French essay ('attempt'), from the verb essayer, 'to try' or 'to attempt'. The first author to describe his works as essays was the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592). Inspired in particular by the works of Plutarch, a translation of whose Oeuvres morales (Moral works) into French had just been published by Jacques Amyot, Montaigne began to compose his essays in 1572; the first edition, entitled Essais, was published in two volumes in 1580. For the rest of his life he continued revising previously published essays and composing new ones.

Francis Bacon's essays, published in book form in 1597, 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that described themselves as essays. Ben Jonson first used the word essayist in English in 1609, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Notable essayists are legion. They include Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Alamgir Hashmi, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Natalia Ginzburg, Sara Suleri, Annie Dillard, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walter Bagehot, George Orwell, John D'Agata, and E.B. White.

George Orwell as noted above is the pick of the crop with Emerson and White a close second

Answer 2

Sydney Smith - 18th century clergyman, man of letters, much wit, humour, and wisdom, very little abject piety. Try for his letter (not, unfortunately, an essay) about a man about to marry a Very Large Lady.

Go modern: J K Galbraith, Alistair Cooke, George Orwell, Gore Vidal, P J O'Rourke - all pretty much adhere to the classic essay format with some of their collected works and all have a very wide range indeed. Orwell's essay on Salvador Dali is an excellent example of grappling with an ethical dilemma - can you be a Bad Man but a Good Thing?

I agree wholeheartedly about Charles Lamb. I could never get near Virginia Woolf but other people rave about her, so worth trying - the classic is A Room of One's Own, about the trials of being a woman writer. That's probably close to essential.

Must they be English? or simply write in English? 'cos if they have to be English you need to drop Vidal and Galbraith and O'Rourke, which is a pity ... but if they simply have to write in English, then for US$100 you can get the whole of the New Yorker from its first publication until this time last year on CD-ROM and it is richness indeed, and they are noted stylists (i.e. high editorial standards) and you'll find everything you could have hoped for and the cartoons are great also.

Answer 3

English language or English nationality?

I'd pick anything by Neil Postman and The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul if they qualify.

Answer 4

George Orwell.

'Down and Out in Paris and London' and 'The Road to Wigan Pier' are collections of essays by Orwell.

Answer 5

I like Bertrand Russell's writings. You could read many of his essays on the Internet.

Answer 6

John Foster,John Freeman and Virigina Wolfe

Answer 7

Thomas Malthus's cheery essay "On the Principle of Population".

Answer 8

Hunter Thompson is probably America's most famous essayist in modern times.He wrote from 1960 to his death a few years ago.

Answer 9

Charles Lamb was cool.
I read him whenever I get
bored with Yahoo!Answers.

Answer 10

tolstoy love n peace