The Most Anthologized Essays of the Last 25 Years

Depending on who you are, the word “essay” may make you squirm. After all, here in America at least, our introduction to the essay often comes complete with five paragraphs and “repeat but rephrase” and other soul-killing rules. But in actuality, essays are nothing like the staid, formulaic, boring things they make you write in high school. They’re all over the place. They’re wild. Or at least they can be. After all, the word essay comes from the French verb essayer, which means “to try.” Essays are merely attempts, at expression, or at proof; they claim to be nothing more. I’ve always thought that was lovely.

For this list, I looked at 14 essay anthologies, plus the three volumes of Lee Gutkind’s The Best Creative Nonfiction and John D’Agata’s three-part survey of the form (The Next American Essay, The Lost Origins of the Essay, and The Making of the American Essay), for a total of 20 books published between 1991 and 2016. I ignored all themed anthologies, as well as any limited to a specific year or publication. This is the last survey of anthologies in a series—earlier this month, I looked at the most anthologized short stories and the most anthologized poems—and considering all three lists together affords the ability to compare the way the different forms are canonized and read in America.

Of the three, I was most surprised by the data here. The essay is perhaps the most ravenous of forms, but these anthologies included letters, speeches (notably, a fair number of presidential addresses), excerpts from longer, reported works of non-fiction, and a number of works that I consider stories (like Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” which most agree is a short story, and some argue is a poem, but is certainly not an essay) or even actual poetry (John D’Agata, I know you’re a rebel and all, but “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffrey,” while incredible, is not an essay). On the other hand, several essays that I consider top-notch classics didn’t make the cut (like Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” and Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” which each appear only once in all the anthologies I surveyed). And Michel de Montaigne, who essentially coined the term, is only feebly represented. The better news is that five of the nine most anthologized essays are by writers of color, which is significantly better than either of the other lists do in that regard.

Below, I’ve separated my findings into four lists: the most anthologized essays (this should be self-explanatory), the most anthologized essayists (the authors with the most essays total across the anthologies), the most widely anthologized essayists (the authors with the most discrete essays across the anthologies), and the one hit wonders (those essays that were their authors only piece represented across the anthologies, albeit multiple times). At the end, there’s the full list, consisting of all duplicated essays and all essayists who had at least three pieces among the books I surveyed.

Most Anthologized Essays

Nine inclusions:

“Once More to the Lake,” E. B. White

Seven inclusions:

“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Six inclusions:

“How it Feels to be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston
“A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift
“Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan
“The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf

Five inclusions:

“Stranger in the Village,” James Baldwin
“No Name Woman,” Maxine Hong Kingston
“Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell

Four inclusions:

“On Keeping a Notebook,” Joan Didion
“The Search for Marvin Gardens,” John McPhee
“The Way to Rainy Mountain,” N. Scott Momaday

Three inclusions:

“Graduation,” Maya Angelou
“Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin
“The Pain Scale,” Eula Biss
“Seeing,” Annie Dillard
“Learning to Read,” Frederick Douglass
“Of the Coming of John,” W.E.B. Du Bois
from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich
“On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner
“The Crack-up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs,” Stephen Jay Gould
“Illumination Rounds,” Michael Herr
“Salvation,” Langston Hughes
“The Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson
“The Undertaking,” Thomas Lynch
“Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez
“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples
“Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau
“Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace
“Yeager,” Tom Wolfe

Two inclusions:

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, Dorothy Allison
“How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa
“Graven Images,” Saul Bellow
“Time and Distance Overcome,” Eula Biss
“I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady
“Why Don’t We Complain?,” William F. Buckley Jr.
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicolas Carr
“The Dream,” Winston Churchill
“Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Plenary Session,” Hillary Rodham Clinton
“Silent Dancing,” Judith Ortiz Cofer
“Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist,” Meghan Daum
“The White Album,” Joan Didion
“On Going Home,” Joan Didion
“On Morality,” Joan Didion
“Total eclipse,” Annie Dillard
“Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard
from An American Childhood, Annie Dillard
“Somehow Form a Family,” Tony Earley
“Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant,” Gerald Early
“The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich
“Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson
“Young Hunger,” M.F.K. Fisher
“When Doctors Make Mistakes,” Atul Gawande
“He and I,” Natalia Ginzburg
“Mirrorings,” Lucy Grealy
“The Lost Childhood,” Graham Greene
“Apotheosis of Martin Luther King,” Elizabeth Hardwick
“On the Pleasure of Hating,” William Hazlitt
“The Courage of Turtles,” Edward Hoagland
“A Small Place,” Jamaica Kincaid
“Dream Children: a Reverie,” Charles Lamb
“Coming Home Again,” Chang-Rae Lee
“On Being a Cripple,” Nancy Mairs
“Of Some Verses on Virgil,” Michel de Montaigne
“Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee
“Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney,” Barack Obama
“Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell
“The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato
“Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy,” Judy Ruiz
“Under the Influence,” Scott Russell Sanders
“The Men We Carry in our Minds,” Scott Russell Sanders
“Letter to President Pierce, 1855,” Chief Seattle
“Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” Leslie Marmon Silko
“What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You?,” Peter Singer
“A Century of Cinema,” Susan Sontag
“Regarding the Pain of Others,” Susan Sontag
“Decolonizing the Mind,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
“Walking,” Henry David Thoreau
“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” Henry David Thoreau
“Ain’t I a Woman?,” Sojourner Truth
“Advice to Youth,” Mark Twain
“In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens,” Alice Walker
“Writing and Analyzing a Story,” Eudora Welty
“The Clan of One-Breasted Women,” Terry Tempest Williams
“A Preface to Persius,” Edmund Wilson
“In Search of a Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf

The Most Anthologized Essayists
(the authors with most essays published among the anthologies)

Sixteen essays:
Joan Didion

Fourteen essays:
Annie Dillard

Thirteen essays:
Virginia Woolf

Eleven essays:
James Baldwin
George Orwell
E. B. White

Nine essays:
Richard Rodriguez
Henry David Thoreau

Eight essays:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Susan Sontag
Jonathan Swift

Seven essays:
Samuel Johnson
Michel de Montaigne
Mark Twain
Eudora Welty

Six essays:
Francis Bacon
Barbara Ehrenreich
Stephen Jay Gould
Maxine Hong Kingston
Zora Neale Hurston
Charles Lamb
John McPhee
David Sedaris
Amy Tan

Five essays:
Maya Angelou
Eula Biss
M.F.K. Fisher
Atul Gawande
William Hazlitt
Jamaica Kincaid
Nancy Mairs
H.L. Mencken
N. Scott Momaday
Adrienne Rich
Lewis Thomas
Alice Walker
David Foster Wallace
Tom Wolfe

The Most Widely Anthologized Essayists 
(authors with most discrete essays published among the anthologies)

Ten essays:

Joan Didion

Nine essays:

Annie Dillard

Seven essays:

Samuel Johnson
Richard Rodriguez
Virginia Woolf

Six essays:

Sir Francis Bacon
Michel de Montaigne
George Orwell
David Sedaris
Seneca
Susan Sontag
Mark Twain
Eudora Welty

Five essays:

James Baldwin
Charles Lamb
H.L. Mencken
Adrienne Rich
Lewis Thomas
Henry David Thoreau

Four essays:

Max Beerbohm
G.K. Chesterton
Barbara Ehrenreich
M.F.K. Fisher
Atul Gawande
Stephen Jay Gould
William Hazlitt
Jamaica Kincaid
Phillip Lopate
Barry Lopez
Nancy Mairs
Cynthia Ozick
Anna Quindlen
Scott Russell Sanders
Robert Louis Stevenson
James Thurber
Alice Walker

One Hit Wonders
(authors with a only single essay represented across the anthologies)

Six inclusions:

“How it Feels to be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston
“Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan

Three inclusions:

“On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner
“Illumination Rounds,” Michael Herr
“The Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson
“The Undertaking,” Thomas Lynch

Two inclusions:

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, Dorothy Allison
“How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa
“Graven Images,” Saul Bellow
“I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady
“Why Don’t We Complain?,” William F. Buckley Jr.
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicolas Carr
“Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Plenary Session,” Hillary Rodham Clinton
“Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist,” Meghan Daum
“Somehow Form a Family,” Tony Earley
“Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson
“He and I,” Natalia Ginzburg
“Mirrorings,” Lucy Grealy
“The Lost Childhood,” Graham Greene
“Apotheosis of Martin Luther King,” Elizabeth Hardwick
“Coming Home Again,” Chang-Rae Lee
“Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee
“The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato
“Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy,” Judy Ruiz
“Letter to President Pierce, 1855,” Chief Seattle
“Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” Leslie Marmon Silko
“Decolonizing the Mind,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
“Ain’t I a Woman?,” 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
“Indian Education,” Sherman Alexie
“Captivity,” Sherman Alexie

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, Dorothy Allison (x 2)

“Graduation,” Maya Angelou (x 3)
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou
“Champion of the World,” Maya Angelou

“How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa (x 2)

“Of Truth,” Sir Francis Bacon
“Of Revenge,” Sir Francis Bacon
“Of Boldness,” Sir Francis Bacon
“Of Innovations,” Sir Francis Bacon
“Of Masques and Triumphs,” Sir Francis Bacon
“Antithesis of Things,” Sir Francis Bacon

“Stranger in the Village,” James Baldwin (x 5)
“Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin (x 3)
“Alas, Poor Richard,” James Baldwin
“The Fight: Patterson vs. Liston,” James Baldwin
“Equal in Paris,” James Baldwin

“Going Out for a Walk,” Max Beerbohm
“Laughter,” Max Beerbohm
“Something Defeasible,” Max Beerbohm
“A Clergyman,” Max Beerbohm

“Graven Images,” Saul Bellow (x 2)

“What Reconciles Me,” John Berger
“Photographs of Agony,” John Berger
“Turner and the Barber’s Shop,” John Berger

“The Pain Scale,” Eula Biss (x 3)
“Time and Distance Overcome,” Eula Biss (x 2)

“Blindness,” Jorge Luis Borges
“Borges and I,” Jorge Luis Borges
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus,” Jorge Luis Borges

“I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady (x 2)

“Why Don’t We Complain?,” William F. Buckley Jr. (x 2)

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicholas Carr (x 2)

“The Glass Essay,” Anne Carson
from Short Talks, Anne Carson
“Kinds of Water,” Anne Carson

“Marginal world,” Rachel Carson
“The Obligation to Endure,” Rachel Carson
“A Fable for Tomorrow,” Rachel Carson

“A Piece of Chalk,” G.K. Chesterton
“On Running After One’s Hat,” G.K. Chesterton
“A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls,” G.K. Chesterton
“On Sandals and Simplicity,” G.K. Chesterton

“The Dream,” Winston Churchill (x 2)
from “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” Winston Churchill
from “This Was Their Finest Hour,” Winston Churchill

“Silent Dancing,” Judith Ortiz Cofer (x 2)
“More Room,” Judith Ortiz Cofer
“Myth of the Latin Woman: I just met a girl named Maria,” Judith Ortiz Cofer

“Another Country,” Edwidge Danticat
“Uncle Moïse,” Edwidge Danticat
“Westbury Court,” Edwidge Danticat

“Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist,” Meghan Daum (x 2)

“On Keeping a Notebook,” Joan Didion (x 4)
“The White Album,” Joan Didion (x 2)
“On Going Home,” Joan Didion (x 2)
“On Morality,” Joan Didion (x 2)
“Goodbye to All That,” Joan Didion
“In Bed,” Joan Didion
“At the Dam,” Joan Didion
“Georgia O’Keeffe,” Joan Didion
from Salvador, Joan Didion
“The Santa Ana,” Joan Didion

“Seeing,” Annie Dillard (x 3)
“Total Eclipse,” Annie Dillard (x 2)
“Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard (x 2)
rom An American Childhood, Annie Dillard (x 2)
“Sight into Insight,” Annie Dillard
“On Foot in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley,” Annie Dillard
from For the Time Being, Annie Dillard
“The Chase,” Annie Dillard
“The Stunt Pilot,” Annie Dillard

“Learning to Read,” Frederick Douglass (x 3)
from “Fourth of July Oration,” Frederick Douglass

“Of the Coming of John,” W.E.B. Du Bois (x 3)
“A Mild Suggestion,” W.E.B. Du Bois

“Somehow Form a Family,” Tony Earley (x 2)

“Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant,” Gerald Early (x 2)
“Digressions,” Gerald Early

from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich (x 3)
“Serving in Florida,” Barbara Ehrenreich
“Cultural Baggage,” Barbara Ehrenreich
“War Without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited,” Barbara Ehrenreich

“The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich (x 2)
from the Journals, Gretel Ehrlich
“Lijiang,” Gretel Ehrlich

“On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner (x 3)

“Brown Wasps,” Loren Eiseley
“The Angry Winter,” Loren Eiseley
“The Snout,” Loren Eiseley

“Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T.S. Eliot
“Marie Lloyd,” T.S. Eliot
“The Dry Salvages,” T.S. Eliot

“The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The Conservative,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson (x 2)

“Young Hunger,” M.F.K. Fisher (x 2)
“Once a Tramp, Always,” M.F.K. Fisher
“The Flaw,” M.F.K. Fisher
“Paris Journal,” M.F.K. Fisher

“The Crack-up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald (x 3)
“Sleeping and Waking,” F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Learning to Write,” Benjamin Franklin
from the Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin
“The Levee,” Benjamin Franklin

“When Doctors Make Mistakes,” Atul Gawande (x 2)
from “Overkill,” Atul Gawande
“Final Cut,” Atul Gawande
“Why Boston’s Hospitals Were Ready,” Atul Gawande

“He and I,” Natalia Ginzburg (x 2)

“Java Man,” Malcolm Gladwell
“None of the Above: What I.Q. Doesn’t Tell You about Race,” Malcolm Gladwell
“The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell

“Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs,” Stephen Jay Gould (x 3)
“Creation Myths of Cooperstown,” Stephen Jay Gould
“A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse,” Stephen Jay Gould
“The Median Isn’t the Message,” Stephen Jay Gould

“Mirrorings,” Lucy Grealy (x 2)

“The Lost Childhood,” Graham Greene (x 2)

“Apotheosis of Martin Luther King,” Elizabeth Hardwick (x 2)

“No Name Woman,” Maxine Hong Kingston (x 5)
“Tongue-Tied,” Maxine Hong Kingston

“On the Pleasure of Hating,” William Hazlitt (x 2)
“On Going a Journey,” William Hazlitt
“The Fight,” William Hazlitt
“Brummelliana,” William Hazlitt

“Illumination Rounds,” Michael Herr (x 3)

“The Courage of Turtles,” Edward Hoagland (x 2)
“The Threshold and the Jolt of Pain,” Edward Hoagland
“Heaven and Nature,” Edward Hoagland

“Salvation,” Langston Hughes (x 3)
“Bop,” Langston Hughes

“How it Feels to Be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston (x 6)

“The Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson (x 3)

“The Boarding house,” Samuel Johnson
“The Solitude of the Country,” Samuel Johnson
“Dignity and Uses of Biography,” Samuel Johnson
“Conversation,” Samuel Johnson
“Debtors’ Prisons (1),” Samuel Johnson
“Debtors’ Prisons (2),” Samuel Johnson
“To Reign Once More in Our Native Country,” Samuel Johnson

“A Small Place,” Jamaica Kincaid (x 2)
“On Seeing England for the First Time,” Jamaica Kincaid
“Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid
“Biography of a Dress,” Jamaica Kincaid

“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. (x 7)
“I Have a Dream,” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Dream Children: a Reverie,” Charles Lamb (x 2)
“New Year’s Eve,” Charles Lamb
“A Chapter on Ears,” Charles Lamb
“The Superannuated Man,” Charles Lamb
from “On Some of the Old Actors,” Charles Lamb

“Coming Home Again,” Chang-Rae Lee (x 2)

“Second Inaugural Address,” Abraham Lincoln (x 3)
“First Inaugural Address,” Abraham Lincoln
“The Gettysburg Address,” Abraham Lincoln

“Against Joie de Vivre,” Phillip Lopate
“Portrait of my Body,” Phillip Lopate
“On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character,” Phillip Lopate
“The Dead Father: A Rememberance of Donald Barthelme,” Phillip Lopate

“Flight,” Barry Lopez
“Grown Men,” Barry Lopez
“The Raven,” Barry Lopez
“Landscape and Narrative,” Barry Lopez

“The Fourth of July,” Audre Lorde
“Poetry is Not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde
“The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” Audre Lorde

“The Undertaking,” Thomas Lynch (x 3)

“On Being a Cripple,” Nancy Mairs (x 2)
“Ron her Son,” Nancy Mairs
“Body in Trouble,” Nancy Mairs
“Disability,” Nancy Mairs

“My Confession,” Mary McCarthy
“Artists in Uniform,” Mary McCarthy
“Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?,” Mary McCarthy

“The Case for Single-Child Families,” Bill McKibben
“Waste Not, Want Not,” Bill McKibben
“Curbing Nature’s Paparazzi,” Bill McKibben

“The Search for Marvin Gardens,” John McPhee (x 4)
“Under the Snow,” John McPhee
from Annals of the Former World, John McPhee

“On Being an American,” H.L. Mencken
“Hills of Zion,” H.L. Mencken
“Reflections on Journalism,” H.L. Mencken
“The Libido for the Ugly,” H.L. Mencken
“Funeral march,” H.L. Mencken

“The Way to Rainy Mountain,” N. Scott Momaday (x 4)
“An American Land Ethic,” N. Scott Momaday

“Of some verses on Virgil,” Michel de Montaigne (x 2)
“Of books,” Michel de Montaigne
“Of a monstrous child,” Michel de Montaigne
from “On Cannibals,” Michel de Montaigne
“Of Democritus and Heraclitus,” Michel de Montaigne
“Of Experience,” Michel de Montaigne

“Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee (x 2)

“This is Not Who We Are,” Naomi Shihab Nye
“Thank You in Arabic,” Naomi Shihab Nye
“One Village,” Naomi Shihab Nye

“Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney,” Barack Obama (x 2)
“A More Perfect Union,” Barack Obama

“Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell (x 5)
“Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell (x 2)
“Such, Such were the Joys,” George Orwell
“Reflections on Gandhi,” George Orwell
“The Moon under Water,” George Orwell
“A Hanging,” George Orwell

“Drugstore in Winter,” Cynthia Ozick
“The Lesson of the Master,” Cynthia Ozick
“Highbrow Blues,” Cynthia Ozick
“Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body,” Cynthia Ozick

“The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato (x 2)

“An Animal’s Place,” Michael Pollan
“Why “Natural” Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore,” Michael Pollan
“What’s Eating America,” Michael Pollan

“Future is Now,” Katherine Anne Porter
“St. Augustine and the Bullfight,” Katherine Anne Porter
“The Necessary Enemy,” Katherine Anne Porter

“Between the Sexes, a Great Divide,” Anna Quindlen
“Stuff Is Not Salvation,” Anna Quindlen
“The War We Haven’t Won,” Anna Quindlen
“Homeless,” Anna Quindlen

“Split at the Root,” Adrienne Rich
“Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” Adrienne Rich
“Taking Women Students Seriously,” Adrienne Rich
“Claiming an Education,” Adrienne Rich
from “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich

“Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez (x 3)
“Late Victorians,” Richard Rodriguez
“Going Home Again,” Richard Rodriguez
from Crossing Borders, Richard Rodriguez
from Darling, Richard Rodriguez
“Private Language, Public Language,” Richard Rodriguez
“‘Blaxicans’ and Other Reinvented Americans,” Richard Rodriguez

“Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy,” Judy Ruiz (x 2)

“Under the Influence,” Scott Russell Sanders (x 2 )
“The Men we Carry in our Minds,” Scott Russell Sanders (x 2)
“The Singular First Person,” Scott Russell Sanders
“The Inheritance of Tools,” Scott Russell Sanders

“Letter to President Pierce, 1855,” Chief Seattle (x 2)

“Repeat After Me,” David Sedaris
“Loggerheads,” David Sedaris
“A Plague of Tics,” David Sedaris
“Guy Walks into a Bar Car,” David Sedaris
“The Drama Bug,” David Sedaris
“Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa,” David Sedaris

“On Noise,” Seneca
“Asthma,” Seneca
“Scipio’s Villa,” Seneca
“Slaves,” Seneca
“Epistle 47,” Seneca
“Sick,” Seneca

“Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” Leslie Marmon Silko (x 2)

“What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You?,” Peter Singer (x 2)
from Animal Liberation, Peter Singer

“A Century of Cinema,” Susan Sontag (x 2)
“Regarding the Pain of Others,” Susan Sontag (x 2)
“Notes on ‘Camp,'” Susan Sontag
from “Freak Show,” Susan Sontag
“Unguided Tour,” Susan Sontag
from “AIDS and Its Metaphors,” Susan Sontag.

“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton (x 3)
“Seneca Falls Keynote Address,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples (x 3)
“Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” Brent Staples

“Aes Triplex,” Robert Louis Stevenson
“The Lantern-bearers,” Robert Louis Stevenson
“An Apology for Idlers,” Robert Louis Stevenson
“On Marriage,” Robert Louis Stevenson

“A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift (x 6)
“Good Manners and Good Breeding,” Jonathan Swift
“A Meditation upon a Broom-stick,” Jonathan Swift

“Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan (x 6)

“Decolonizing the Mind,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (x 2)

“Lives of a Cell,” Lewis Thomas
“Notes on Punctuation,” Lewis Thomas
“To Err is Human,” Lewis Thomas
“Becoming a Doctor,” Lewis Thomas
“The Medusa and the Snail,” Lewis Thomas

“Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau (x 3)
“Walking,” Henry David Thoreau (x 2)
“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” Henry David Thoreau (x 2)
“The Battle of the Ants,” Henry David Thoreau
“Night and Moonlight,” Henry David Thoreau

“The Secret Life of James Thurber,” James Thurber
“Sex Ex Machina,” James Thurber
“My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage,” James Thurber
“Snapshot of a Dog,” James Thurber

“Ain’t I a Woman?,” Sojourner Truth (x 2)

“Advice to Youth,” Mark Twain (x 2)
“Corn-pone Opinions,” Mark Twain
“Italian without a master,” Mark Twain
“Thoughts of God,” Mark Twain
from Life on the Mississippi
“Letters from the Earth,” Mark Twain

“In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens,” Alice Walker (x 2)
“Looking for Zora,” Alice Walker
“Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self,” Alice Walker
“Becoming What We’re Called,” Alice Walker

“Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace (x 3)
“Ticket to the Fair,” David Foster Wallace
“Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise,” David Foster Wallace

“Once More to the Lake,” E.B. White (x 9)
“The Ring of Time,” E.B. White
“About Myself,” E.B. White

“Writing and Analyzing a Story,” Eudora Welty (x 2)
“Sweet Devouring,” Eudora Welty
“Clamorous to Learn,” Eudora Welty
“One Writer’s Beginnings,” Eudora Welty
“The Little Store,” Eudora Welty
“Listening,” Eudora Welty

“The Clan of One-Breasted Women,” Terry Tempest Williams (x 2)

“A Preface to Persius,” Edmund Wilson (x 2)
“Old Stone House,” Edmund Wilson
“Life is a Narrative,” Edmund Wilson

“Yeager,” Tom Wolfe (x 3)
“Putting Daddy On,” Tom Wolfe
“The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” Tom Wolfe

The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf (x 6)
“In Search of a Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf (x 2)
“Leslie Stephen,” Virginia Woolf
“Harriette Wilson,” Virginia Woolf
“Ellen Terry,” Virginia Woolf
“Street Haunting,” Virginia Woolf
from Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf

Anthologies Surveyed:

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, ed. Philip Lopate (1997); The Best American Essays of the Century, ed. Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan (2001); Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present, ed. Lex Williford and Michael Martone (2007); The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction, 14th edition, ed. Melissa Goldthwaite, Joseph Bizup, John Brereton, Anne Fernald, Linda Peterson (2015); The Norton Book of Personal Essays, ed. Joseph Epstein (1997); The Best Creative Nonfiction, ed. Lee Gutkind, Volumes 1, 2, & 3 (2007); The Signet Book of American Essays, ed. M. Jerry Weiss and Helen Weiss (2006); The Oxford Book of Essays, ed. John Gross (1991); 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, Samuel Cohen (2011); The Eloquent Essay: An Anthology of Classic & Creative Nonfiction, ed. John Loughery (2000); The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose, Third Edition, ed. Laura Buzzard, Don LePan, Nora Ruddock, Alexandria Stuart (2016); The Next American Essay, ed. John D’Agata (2003) & The Lost Origins of the Essay, ed. John D’Agata (2009) & The Making of the American Essay, ed. John D’Agata (2016); Contemporary Creative Nonfiction, ed. B. Minh Nguyen and Porter Shreve (2005); Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth, ed. Bill Roorbach (2001); 40 Model Essays, Second edition, ed. Jane E. Aaron and Ellen Kuhl Repetto (2003); The Seagull Reader: Essays, Third Edition, ed. Joseph Kelly (2015)