For more than four hundred years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the detached formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its loose structure, and its drive toward candor and self-disclosure, the personal essay seizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities, fashions, foibles, oddballs, seasonal rituals, love and disappointment, the pleasures of solitude, reading, taking a walk -- to offer insight into the human condition and the great social and political issues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this fertile genre. By presenting more than seventy-five personal essays, including influential forerunners from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Far East, masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in the sixteenth century, and a wealth of the finest personal essays from the last four centuries, editor Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, displays the tradition of the personal essay in all its historical grandeur, depth, and diversity.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A wonderful book. The most charming smorgasbord imaginable of essays from around the world." -- Diane Cole, USA Today.
"Without a doubt, this is the most nourishing essay collection I've read in years." -- Susan Burmeister-Brown, Portland Oregonian.
"A labor of deeply felt love and keenly honed scholarship by an essay authority who knows his territory down to his bones." -- Christian Science Monitor.
"The best available [essay anthology] no matter how crowded the field." -- Chicago Tribune.
"The striking thing is how much Lopate has managed to pack in, and how high a standard he has managed to maintain." -- John Gross, New York Newsday.
"Packed with personality and beguiling first-person prose... of reminders of the perils and pleasures of the craft." -- The Wall Street Journal.
"Without a doubt, this is the most nourishing essay collection I've read in years." -- Susan Burmeister-Brown, Portland Oregonian.
"A labor of deeply felt love and keenly honed scholarship by an essay authority who knows his territory down to his bones." -- Christian Science Monitor.
"The best available [essay anthology] no matter how crowded the field." -- Chicago Tribune.
"The striking thing is how much Lopate has managed to pack in, and how high a standard he has managed to maintain." -- John Gross, New York Newsday.
"Packed with personality and beguiling first-person prose... of reminders of the perils and pleasures of the craft." -- The Wall Street Journal.
From the Publisher
For more than four hundred years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the detached formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its loose structure, and its drive toward candor and self-disclosure, the personal essay seizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities, fashions, foibles, oddballs, seasonal rituals, love and disappointment, the pleasures of solitude, reading, taking a walk -- to offer insight into the human condition and the great social and political issues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this fertile genre. By presenting more than seventy-five personal essays, including influential forerunners from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Far East, masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in the sixteenth century, and a wealth of the finest personal essays from the last four centuries, editor Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, displays the tradition of the personal essay in all its historical grandeur, depth, and diversity.
"A wonderful book. The most charming smorgasbord imaginable of essays from around the world." -- Diane Cole, USA Today.
"Without a doubt, this is the most nourishing essay collection I've read in years." -- Susan Burmeister-Brown, Portland Oregonian.
"A labor of deeply felt love and keenly honed scholarship by an essay authority who knows his territory down to his bones." -- Christian Science Monitor.
"The best available [essay anthology] no matter how crowded the field." -- Chicago Tribune.
"The striking thing is how much Lopate has managed to pack in, and how high a standard he has managed to maintain." -- John Gross, New York Newsday.
"Packed with personality and beguiling first-person prose... of reminders of the perils and pleasures of the craft." -- The Wall Street Journal.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's clear that reading good literature leads to improved writing. This anthology is a superb collection, selected and introduced by Phillip Lopate. Lopate is said to be one of the best essayists and critics of the personal essay. The book identifies itself as a "Teachers & Writers Collaborative Book". It is absolutely wonderful, a thick, heavy book full of pleasure and is dubbed as the "first anthology to celebrate this lively, fertile genre."
In his introduction, Lopate says of the personal essay: The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom. Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue, a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship.
The introduction is with rich detail of everything you ever needed to know about the "personal essay". He delves into his selection, rationale and arrangement of this book. As I said, everything you ever needed to know is here!
The collection consists of 75 personal essays, spanning over 400 years. The first section is called the forerunners, these are the earliest dating from 1600's, including: Seneca, Plutarch, Kenko, Shonagon, Hsiu, Michel De Montaigne. Then, the rise of the English essay: Abraham Cowley, Addison & Steele, Samuel Johnson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginia Woolf, Orwell, etc.
Another section is titled "Other Cultures, Other Continents", some listed are: Ivan Turgenev, Lu Hsun, Jorge Luis Borges, Roland Barthes, etc. Last section is titled "American Scene" includes: Thoreau, Thurber, McCarthy, Fitzgerald, E.B. White, Baldwin, Didion, Lopate, etc., etc.... Read more ›
In his introduction, Lopate says of the personal essay: The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom. Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue, a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship.
The introduction is with rich detail of everything you ever needed to know about the "personal essay". He delves into his selection, rationale and arrangement of this book. As I said, everything you ever needed to know is here!
The collection consists of 75 personal essays, spanning over 400 years. The first section is called the forerunners, these are the earliest dating from 1600's, including: Seneca, Plutarch, Kenko, Shonagon, Hsiu, Michel De Montaigne. Then, the rise of the English essay: Abraham Cowley, Addison & Steele, Samuel Johnson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginia Woolf, Orwell, etc.
Another section is titled "Other Cultures, Other Continents", some listed are: Ivan Turgenev, Lu Hsun, Jorge Luis Borges, Roland Barthes, etc. Last section is titled "American Scene" includes: Thoreau, Thurber, McCarthy, Fitzgerald, E.B. White, Baldwin, Didion, Lopate, etc., etc.... Read more ›
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
By JR Pinto
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Laurie Stone, the essayist and creative writing teacher, recommended this book to me as the most essential volume on the personal essay. I could not agree more. The editor, Philip Lopate, is one of the most well-respected authors of the personal essay and he has compiled this anthology of pieces from the classical era to the present. The book works well for readers and writers alike. Lopate, in his lengthy introduction, gives an overview of the personal essay, and instructions on how to use this book as a learning tool. It is divided into several sections, beginning with the essay's forerunners in the classical period. Michel De Montaigne, the father of the personal essay, gets his own section. Personally, I did not find it useful to read the book cover-to-cover - I read it in reverse. I started out with the most recent, contemporary essays - those most accessible to me - and went backwards in order to see the devolution of the essay, as it were.
The essay is fast becoming one of my favorite forms - it is short, funny, and insightful. I highly recommend this book to ANYONE.
The essay is fast becoming one of my favorite forms - it is short, funny, and insightful. I highly recommend this book to ANYONE.
37 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A book that has travelled with me for years and well worth all the space in my limited luggage space. I would definitely take this book to a desert island and it would be a book that I would grab off its shelf if my house was on fire.
Time has made me appreciate the voices contained within its cover greatly.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By FJC
Format:Paperback
There are a lot of really poor essay anthologies on the market. This is not one of them. Lopate himself is an accomplished writer, but he does his readers the great favor of including a broad range of authors, temporally and experientially. Many anthologies skip the masters (Montaigne, Orwell, Johnson) in favor of more modern--and less talented--authors. If you are looking for a single anthology of essays this is the one. It covers the entire genre like no other. And it is comparitively cheap too.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book opens with a terrific overview of the personal essay. Not only does it discuss the place of creative nonfiction in the writing spectrum but it gets to the heart of the personal essay -how we express the human experience. Lopate walks us, the average reader, through the choosing and the parceling of these kinds of works and by the end we are prepared for the well laid journey ahead.
The voices are so varied - from George Orwell's beautifully written essay on life in a British boarding school to James Baldwin's piece on his father's death and life as a Black man in America. We feel with each author, cry with them and share in their triumphs. Though the styles are quite different from one author to the next, the common thread is each person's love of writing, their adept manipulation of language, and the most important element of the essay - their honesty in each line.
This is an excellent choice for those are learning the art of creative nonfiction or for those more seasoned readers or writers who truly want a satisfying read.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
One of my favorite books - it has a eclectic, rich, and well-thought collection of the greatest essays from the classical to the modern era. Entertaining and meditative at the same time.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Jessica Swan
Format:Paperback
My favorite essay in this thick, heavy, door-stopping book is a humble writing of G.K. Chesterton entitled "A Piece of Chalk". I absolutely adore drawing with chalk and so of course I felt connected to him right off the bat. It was actually the first time I'd ever read Chesterton before, and I instantly fell in love. There is something in his writing that resonates with something inside me... in other words, it feels good. This anthology also includes other masters, both classic and modern such as Didion, Seneca, among many, many others. Despite the size, it's very easy to read through and find your own favorites thanks to the table that sorts the essays by theme.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Philosophical insights in crystalline thought
The essay has long been a favorite form of writing, or should I say reading. And Lopate has gathered a treasure trove of the form. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Lionel J. Libson
3.0 out of 5 stars
College book
The book was good it has a lot of highlighting and the edges are worn in making it look old. It has the story's I need so it works well
Published 5 months ago by Newmanje
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb introduction
The introduction itself is invaluable. The author gives an excellent overview of the personal essay as a genre -- how the essay is put together, why it works, what makes it so... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jean S. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars
BIG BOOK
EXTREMELY big book for the class I was in. This was a complementary book along with another one for a writing 212 class in Brigham Young University. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Frank
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Invitation to Personal Essay
The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present is a teachers and writers collaborative book expounding the personal essay. Read more
Published on September 16, 2010 by Judith Lethin
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad
I bought this for summer reading assignments for my high school. I thought it was going to be a boring collection of essays but it surprised me. Read more
Published on July 14, 2010 by MayaBooks
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Nice
I received this book in ample amount of time and it was in great condition. Can't beat the price....!!!
Published on February 24, 2010 by Mom/of/2Byz
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essays
As a new writer interested in writing personal essays, Philip Lopate's collection is essential for understanding the history of essays and how essays have evolved to date.
Published on May 27, 2008 by Fred Tomasello Jr.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Art of the Personal Essay...
Using this book as a reference for a class in writing the personal essay. It is very comprehensive and the essays are interesting and helpful.
Published on September 24, 2007 by D. Siegel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential!
I recently attended a lecture by Philip Lopate. It was informative, instructional, and entertaining. I can say the same about this anthology. Read more
Published on January 9, 2007 by Lisa Groen Braner
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