most famous short essays

1. David Sedaris - Laugh, Kookaburra. A great family drama takes place against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness. And the Kookaburra laughs…. This is one of the top essays of the lot. It's a great mixture of family reminiscences, travel writing, and advice on what's most important in life.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) Of every essay in my relentlessly earmarked copy of Braiding Sweetgrass, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's gorgeously rendered argument for why and how we should keep going, there's one that especially hits home: her account of professor-turned-forester Franz Dolp.When Dolp, several decades ago, revisited the farm that he had once shared with his ex ...

Fortunately, when I worked with Joyce Carol Oates on The Best American Essays of the Century (that's the last century, by the way), we weren't restricted to ten selections. So to make my list ...

I found over 12 best essays lists and several essay anthologies and combined the essays into one meta-list. The meta-list below includes every essay that was on at least two of the original source lists. They are organized by rank, that is, with the essays on the most lists at the top. To see the same list organized chronologically, go HERE.

The English language is 'in a bad way', Orwell argues in this famous essay from 1946. As its title suggests, Orwell identifies a link between the (degraded) English language of his time and the degraded political situation: Orwell sees modern political discourse as being less a matter of words chosen for their clear meanings than a series of stock phrases slung together.

Robert Atwan's favorite lit­er­ary genre is the essay. As edi­tor and founder of The Best Amer­i­can Essays series, Atwan has read thou­sands of exam­ples of the remark­ably flex­i­ble form. "Essays can be lots of things, maybe too many things," writes Atwan in his fore­ward to the 2012 install­ment in the Best Amer­i­can series, "but at the core of the ...

Every time I've taught George Orwell's famous 1946 essay on misleading, smudgy writing, "Politics and the English Language,' to a group of undergraduates, we've delighted in pointing out the number of times Orwell violates his own rules—indulges some form of vague, "pretentious" diction, slips into unnecessary passive voice, etc. It's a petty exercise, ...

After the jump, our picks for the 25 greatest essay collections of all time. Feel free to disagree with us, praise our intellect, or create an entirely new list in the comments. The Book of My ...

Sojourner Truth. "The Clan of One-Breasted Women," Terry Tempest Williams. The Full List. (all essays by writers with at least one duplication or three disparate essays anthologized) "The Great American Desert," Edward Abbey. "The Cowboy and his Cow," Edward Abbey. "Havasu," Edward Abbey. "Superman and Me," Sherman Alexie.

The Same River Twice by David Quammen. You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on. To most people it comes across as a nice resonant metaphor, a bit of philosophic poetry. To me it is that and more.

So below is my list, not of essay collections I think everybody "must read," even if that's what my title says, but collections I hope you will consider checking out if you want to. 1. Against Interpretation — Susan Sontag. 2. Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere — André Aciman. 3. American Romances — Rebecca Brown. 4. Art & Ardor ...

Updated on October 02, 2019. From the works and musings of Walt Witman to those of Virginia Woolf, some of the cultural heroes and prolific artists of prose are listed below--along with some of the world's greatest essays and speeches ever composed by these British and American literary treasures. George Ade (1866-1944)

Short Essays for Students. This page contains short essays and other non-fiction writing for students or anyone who wants to read and think about an opinion piece. It will only take a few minutes or less to read any of these texts. They are all under 2,000 words. Each non-fiction selection has a short summary or teaser and some possible themes ...

6. Melissa Febos: " The Wild, Sublime Body ". This essay appeared in Best American Essays 2022 after being published in The Yale Review, and showcases the best of Febos, in that it is intensely corporeal. Febos's personal essay has a very clear subject—her body and her relationship with her body.

Read it here. A gorgeous mini-essay from an American giant that is equally relevant to writers of poetry or prose, and is almost a poem itself. "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader ...

Some of the most famous literary works are essays, written by great authors and writers. Essays span a variety of genres, including comedy, non-fiction, history, and current events. ... Lists about novelists, poets, short story authors, journalists, essayists, and playwrights, from simple rankings to fun facts about the men and women behind the ...

6. "Self-Reliance" — Ralph Waldo Emerson. ecx.images-amazon.com. One of Emerson's most influential essays, you can read it online or in nearly every collection of his works. While his prose's ...

In this 2014 essay, a teenager learns important lessons from his boss at Pizza Hut. How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua. An American scholar of Chicana cultural theory discusses how she maintained her identity by refusing to submit to linguistic terrorism. Humble Beast: Samaje Perine by John Rohde.

Harvey Milk's "The Hope" Speech. Sample lines: "Some people are satisfied. And some people are not. You see there is a major difference—and it remains a vital difference—between a friend and a gay person, a friend in office and a gay person in office. Gay people have been slandered nationwide.

1. Anton Chekhov, 'The Student'. A key device in many Chekhov short stories is the epiphany: a sudden realisation or moment of enlightenment experienced by one of the story's characters, usually the protagonist.In many ways, the epiphany can be said to perform a similar function to the plot twist or revelation at the end of a more traditional (i.e., plot-driven) short story.

As an ominously prescient prediction of the downside of technology, "The Veldt" is a short and shining example of how Ray Bradbury was an author before his time. 10. "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. In this classic short story, we are privy to the journals of Charlie Gordon, a cleaner with an IQ of 68.

A reader suggested I create a meta-list of the best essays of all time, so I did. I found over 12 best essays lists and several essay anthologies and combined the essays into one meta-list. The meta-list below includes every essay that was on at least two of the original source lists. They are organized chronologically, by date of publication.

Wilder also wrote essays, short stories, letters and poetry. Her works are available at HarperCollins Publishers . Famous Quote: "I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of ...

Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist regarded as one of the most famous short story writers of the 20th century. Born in 1883 in Prague, his works often reflect alienation, anxiety, and isolation themes. He wrote extensively on existential topics and used his writing to address political tyranny and bureaucracy.

Since the runway for most scholarship essays is so short, students need to get to the point immediately and efficiently tell the story, focusing one or two solid examples to directly answer the ...