The Art of the Personal Essay
Phillip Lopate · 1994
The definitive anthology spanning Seneca to the present. Lopate's introductions are themselves masterworks of the form.
The case against
Nearly eight hundred pages, and Lopate's taste runs to the genteel: acres of Hazlitt and Lamb before the twentieth century even starts. The roster skews male and canonical, its 'present' ended in 1994, and the introductions, fine as they are, tell you what to admire before you've had a chance to disagree. An anthology this definitive starts to function as a fence.
Essays · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
