What do you think?
Rate this book
The Eloquent Essay: An Anthology of Classic & Creative Nonfiction
This anthology of seventeen modern essays shows the form at its most varied and dramatic. Purposefully concise, it gathers together exemplars of the personal narrative, the argument, the anecdotal essay, digressive discourse, the "open letter," and others. Some of the most engaging authors of our time write on subjects as diverse as becoming a doctor, cattle grazing rights, the death of Socrates, Anne Frank, computer culture, and how to detect "baloney" in all the verbiage that surrounds us. Included in the collection are essays by George Orwell, W. H. Auden, Bruno Bettelheim, Eudora Welty, Martin Luther King Jr., Joan Didion, Edward Abbey, Leo Marx, I. F. Stone, Pico Iyer, Amy Tan, Lewis Thomas, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann S. Causey, Carl Sagan, Ellen Ullman, and Opal Palmer Adisa. Arranged in chronological order, each selection begins with a note about the author and the essay that follows. The introduction discusses the history of the essay form and the reasons for its special vitality. The Eloquent Essay engages the intellect and the passions, and offers the general reader the pleasures of cogent written discourse. At the same time, its carefully selected essays each one superbly written and accessible are well suited to study and discussion.
192 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2000
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 3, 2011
Jordan talked me into it - a familiar story :) Just ordered from The Book Depository...
_______________________________________
If you hang out on Goodreads, I imagine you enjoy reading essays. (Like, if you don't, what exactly are doing here?) This book is a collection of 17 outstanding essays, nearly all of which, I'm ashamed to say, I hadn't previously read.
It was irresistible to pretend I was reading them here on GR, and then try to imagine how I would have reacted to them. In many cases, no great feat of imagination was required. Bruno Bettleheim's The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank, I.F. Stone's When Free Speech Was First Condemned and Leo Marx's Huck at 100 are brilliant reviews of, respectively, The Diary of Anne Frank, Plato's Apologia and Huckleberry Finn. The first two would simply have knocked me flat, Bettleheim by the depth of his controlled anger and Stone by his extraordinary and unconventional scholarship. There's an important word in the Apologia, he claims, which has been consistently mistranslated out of deference to Socrates; when you substitute the correct translation, the whole sense changes.
With Leo Marx, my reaction would have been a little different. I know Huckleberry Finn well, which I can't say of the other two books, and my own review is exactly in this direction, commenting on the irony of the claim that Twain is a racist. Damn! Why didn't I do more work? If I had, I might have written this little gem. The same goes for Pico Iyer's In Praise of the Humble Comma (Iyer adores semi-colons too, but expresses it so much more elegantly than I did), Carl Sagan's The Fine Art of Baloney Detection (I would love to be able to explain the merits of scientific thought equally convincingly), and Ellen Ullmann's Space Is Numeric, a paean to the joys of late-night software implementation. Damn and double-damn! I've hacked code late at night to beat a deadline more times than I can count. I could have written this, but I didn't! Why ever not?
Some of them were telling stories about things I'd never experienced myself, but which would instantly have taken a place in my memory. After reading George Orwell's piece, I almost felt I'd attended a hanging in colonial-era Burma myself, Edward Abbey does a wonderful job of debunking the cowboy myth, and Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, I discovered, thoroughly merits its fame; it's both inspiring and extremely well-written.
And finally, as usual on Goodreads, there are the people writing about the joy of writing. It's always a risky strategy, and Eudora Welty's Writing and Analyzing a Story was one of the very few contributions that I wasn't sure I would have voted for. But Alma Palmer Adler's Lying in the Long Grass, Eating Cane more than made up for it. The theme of conceiving of one's writing as a lover has been used before, but she does it remarkably well. I have to share this quotation with you:
_______________________________________
If you hang out on Goodreads, I imagine you enjoy reading essays. (Like, if you don't, what exactly are doing here?) This book is a collection of 17 outstanding essays, nearly all of which, I'm ashamed to say, I hadn't previously read.
It was irresistible to pretend I was reading them here on GR, and then try to imagine how I would have reacted to them. In many cases, no great feat of imagination was required. Bruno Bettleheim's The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank, I.F. Stone's When Free Speech Was First Condemned and Leo Marx's Huck at 100 are brilliant reviews of, respectively, The Diary of Anne Frank, Plato's Apologia and Huckleberry Finn. The first two would simply have knocked me flat, Bettleheim by the depth of his controlled anger and Stone by his extraordinary and unconventional scholarship. There's an important word in the Apologia, he claims, which has been consistently mistranslated out of deference to Socrates; when you substitute the correct translation, the whole sense changes.
With Leo Marx, my reaction would have been a little different. I know Huckleberry Finn well, which I can't say of the other two books, and my own review is exactly in this direction, commenting on the irony of the claim that Twain is a racist. Damn! Why didn't I do more work? If I had, I might have written this little gem. The same goes for Pico Iyer's In Praise of the Humble Comma (Iyer adores semi-colons too, but expresses it so much more elegantly than I did), Carl Sagan's The Fine Art of Baloney Detection (I would love to be able to explain the merits of scientific thought equally convincingly), and Ellen Ullmann's Space Is Numeric, a paean to the joys of late-night software implementation. Damn and double-damn! I've hacked code late at night to beat a deadline more times than I can count. I could have written this, but I didn't! Why ever not?
Some of them were telling stories about things I'd never experienced myself, but which would instantly have taken a place in my memory. After reading George Orwell's piece, I almost felt I'd attended a hanging in colonial-era Burma myself, Edward Abbey does a wonderful job of debunking the cowboy myth, and Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, I discovered, thoroughly merits its fame; it's both inspiring and extremely well-written.
And finally, as usual on Goodreads, there are the people writing about the joy of writing. It's always a risky strategy, and Eudora Welty's Writing and Analyzing a Story was one of the very few contributions that I wasn't sure I would have voted for. But Alma Palmer Adler's Lying in the Long Grass, Eating Cane more than made up for it. The theme of conceiving of one's writing as a lover has been used before, but she does it remarkably well. I have to share this quotation with you:
I have not given this long-standing, faithful lover, this passionate devotee, my full attention. In some respects, I still fear what might happen to the rest of my life if I were to abandon myself to this paramour. In many ways, I sense that the depth of my feelings borders on sickness; yet I am painfully aware that this lover is as necessary as the blood that feeds my heart.Me too, Alma, me too. I wish I could send you a friend request.
October 11, 2017
I like when things unexpected align. On a recent writing retreat to Santa Fe we were provided for discussion a four essays. One by Joan Didion. Also as part of the workshop, we were taken on a day trip to Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch. I became quite interested again in creative non-fiction and essay writing. I requested "The Eloquent Essay" from the library and it fell right open to a Joan Didion essay on Georgia O'Keefe. (The Amy Tan essay, Mother Tongue, is also very good and, interestingly, a good deal of our Santa Fe curriculum was aimed at voice.
In High School we read and had to write an essay on Orwell's Shooting the Elephant. This collection opens with his other well-known essay The Hanging, filled with precisely chosen details that prick at the reader like rough wool on bare skin making us squirm.
In High School we read and had to write an essay on Orwell's Shooting the Elephant. This collection opens with his other well-known essay The Hanging, filled with precisely chosen details that prick at the reader like rough wool on bare skin making us squirm.
April 7, 2022
So for my English class I was assigned a few essays from this collection …. And I decided to put a post it on the ones I DIDNT get assigned (which was most of them) and over the last two days I would just pick a random postit and read that chapter.
A few of them were lame (although most were very entertaining) , but I really enjoyed reading a short essay because it’s just a 5-10 minute commitment. Reading this while taking English is inspiring me to be a better writer and to try out some of the styles I saw in this collection …..
So much fun to read and i learned SO much in this short book about a WHOLE bunch of different topics 😚😚
A few of them were lame (although most were very entertaining) , but I really enjoyed reading a short essay because it’s just a 5-10 minute commitment. Reading this while taking English is inspiring me to be a better writer and to try out some of the styles I saw in this collection …..
So much fun to read and i learned SO much in this short book about a WHOLE bunch of different topics 😚😚
July 23, 2025
This collection doesn't have a lot of cohesion, except that the pieces within are strong examples of a well crafted essay. Bruno Bettelheim's "The Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank," Edward Abbey's "The Cowboy and His Cow," and Barbara Kingsolver's "How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life" are utterly different in topic and tone. And yet, each is poignant and powerful, and alongside 14 other unique essays, will make you love the form. I enjoyed almost all the essays.
September 22, 2009
wonderful essays. My favorite was an essay by Bruno Bettelheim called the Ignored Lesson of Anne Frank. At the time I read it I thought it was perfect lesson that I need to learn in order to hold onto my job. The lesson was to learn from and react to changing conditions. I guess I did not learn the lesson; me and Mr. Frank, alas!
December 26, 2009
It took me forever to read this. I think I may have averaged less than one essay per week. I did enjoy it though. My favorites:
Eudora Welty - Writing and Analyzing a Story
Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Joan Didion - Georgia O'Keefe
Leo Marx - Huck at 100
Amy Tan - Mother Tongue
Barbara Kingsolver - How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life
Well worth a read.
Eudora Welty - Writing and Analyzing a Story
Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Joan Didion - Georgia O'Keefe
Leo Marx - Huck at 100
Amy Tan - Mother Tongue
Barbara Kingsolver - How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life
Well worth a read.
April 7, 2011
This was one of the first short anthologies I've read where I enjoyed every single piece included. Definitely read it if you want a diverse set of reading set in a short book easy to travel with!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews