The Oxford Book Of American Essays

The Oxford Book of American Essays is an anthology of essays and articles by prominent and significant American writers and essayists. Content: The Ephemera: an Emblem of Human Life (Benjamin Franklin) The Whistle (Benjamin Franklin) Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout (Benjamin Franklin) Consolation for the Old Bachelor (Francis Hopkinson) John Bull (Washington Irving) The Mutability of Literature (Washington Irving) Kean's Acting (Richard Henry Dana) Gifts (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Uses of Great Men (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Buds and Bird-voices (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Philosophy of Composition (Edgar Allan Poe) Bread and the Newspaper (Oliver Wendell Holmes) Walking (Henry David Thoreau) On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners (James Russell Lowell) Preface To "Leaves of Grass" (Walt Whitman) Americanism in Literature (Thomas Wentworth Higginson) Thackeray in America (George William Curtis) Our March To Washington (Theodore Winthrop) Calvin (A Study of Character) (Charles Dudley Warner) Five American Contributions To Civilization (Charles William Eliot) I Talk of Dreams (William Dean Howells) An Idyl of the Honey-bee (John Burroughs) Cut-off Copples's (Clarence King) The Théâtre Français (Henry James) Theocritus on Cape Cod (Hamilton Wright Mabie) Colonialism in the United States (Henry Cabot Lodge) New York After Paris (William Crary Brownell) The Tyranny of Things (Edward Sandford Martin) Free Trade Vs. Protection in Literature (Samuel McChord Crothers) Dante and the Bowery (Theodore Roosevelt) The Revolt of the Unfit (Nicholas Murray Butler) On Translating the Odes of Horace (William Peterfield Trent)

This essay appeared originally in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1883. During the thirty years which have elapsed since it was written the manifestations of the colonial spirit then apparent in the United States have not only altered in character but, I am glad to say, have weakened, diminished, and become less noticeable. Since 1883, also, there has been much achieved by Americans in Art and Literature, in painting, in sculpture, in music, and particularly in architecture. Success in all these fields has, with few exceptions, been won by men working in the spirit which is not colonial, but which it was the purpose of this essay to inculcate as the true one to which alone we could look for fine and enduring achievement. I have called attention to the date at which the essay was written in order that those who read it may remember that it applies in certain points to the conditions of thirty years ago and not to those of the present day.

“The Oxford Book of American Essays” is a diverse collection of carefully-selected essays by notable and influential American writers and essayists. With contributions from such seminal figures as Washington Irvine, Francis Hopkinson, and Benjamin Franklin, this is a book that will appeal to all lovers of the English Language, and one that would make for a worthy addition to any collection. Contents include: “The Ephemera: An Emblem Of Human Life”, “The Whistle”, “Dialogue Between Franklin And The Gout”, “Consolation For The Old Bachelor”, “John Bull”, “The Mutability Of Literature”, “Kean’s Acting”, “On A Certain Condescension In Foreigners”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

The Oxford Book of American Essays By W. C. Brownell et al.