The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present

A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith—selected by acclaimed essayist Phillip Lopate

"Not only an education but a joy. This is a book for the ages." —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

The essay form is an especially democratic one, and many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves—sometimes critically—to American values. We see the Pu...