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A Book of English Essays
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"One of the most notable and attractive forms of English Literature is the essay. In his introduction to this selection, first made for Pelican in 1942 and now enlarged and reprinted, Sir William Emrys Williams points out that the Essay, ‘has a multitude of forms and manners, and scarcely any rules and regulations.’ Although many of the pieces chosen for this volume are such well-known ones as Charles Lamb’s ‘In Praise of Chimney Sweepers’ or De Quincy’s memorable commentary on an episode in ‘Macbeth’, an endeavour has been made to remind readers that Addison, for example, wrote other and better essays than the few which are usually included in anthologies. Modern writers such as Hilaire Belloc, JB Priestly, Aldous Huxley, Robert Lynd, Ivor Brown, Harold Nicholson. EV Lucas, and VS Pritchett are given a fair share of representation."
From the
"One of the most notable and attractive forms of English Literature is the essay. In his introduction to this selection, first made for Pelican in 1942 and now enlarged and reprinted, Sir William Emrys Williams points out that the Essay, ‘has a multitude of forms and manners, and scarcely any rules and regulations.’ Although many of the pieces chosen for this volume are such well-known ones as Charles Lamb’s ‘In Praise of Chimney Sweepers’ or De Quincy’s memorable commentary on an episode in ‘Macbeth’, an endeavour has been made to remind readers that Addison, for example, wrote other and better essays than the few which are usually included in anthologies. Modern writers such as Hilaire Belloc, JB Priestly, Aldous Huxley, Robert Lynd, Ivor Brown, Harold Nicholson. EV Lucas, and VS Pritchett are given a fair share of representation."
378 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
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213 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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April 16, 2013I bought a copy of this in Athens in 1978 when I was there teaching English...to the Greeks!!!So this rereading is a type of "Olde Lang Syne" trip down Memory Lane !!! With Greek resonances !!
Now I notice that the majority of people on this site are from India,
which is GREAT !!!! What a GREAT way to study style and English usage and improve, borrow, experiment or just hope it will rub off as it so often does.Nothing like some gentle 'plagarism' to expand one's own repertoire.
Other readers are from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the UK, Sydney Australia,
(like me!!), the USA, Israel, the Czech Republic,...I'll have to recheck to see I didn't omit anyone.
There are 64 essays here...in my 1951 version. There is a 1987 version with a handsome reproduction of a full-length portrait of Bacon on the Penguin Book cover, but I don't know if W.E.Williams added any more essayists. It begins with Francis Bacon(1561 - 1626) whose succinct pieces are like brief hammer blows...I think he is regarded as the Papa of the Essay Form; and finishes with V.S.Pritchett(1900 - ?)So there is only one person born on the fringe of the 20th century...which means reading another book of essays doesn't it.
And that will just mean more luxurious variety!!!
April 8, 2009
Good, hadn't read this since college. Love Charles Lamb and Harold Nicholson the best. Maybe Joseph Addison. Or E.V. Lucas?
October 30, 2025
The classic essay - not merely polemic, or opinion, or musing, or humorous squib - is a lost art. Not only is there no-one to write them nowadays, there is hardly anyone even to read them. But it is one of the most rarified, truly civilised pleasures of literature, one only for grown-ups - not tagging along breathlessly behind a novelist, scaling the heights with a poet, or taking notes as a student, but being admitted to the company of those who ruled intelligent conversation when conversation was considered an art in itself.
The words of Arthur Clutton-Brock in The Defects of English Prose stand not only as a pretty good description of the form in its heyday, but as a pretty good instance of it:
'The master of prose is not cold, but he will not let any word or image inflame him with a heat irrelevant to his purpose. Unhasting, unresting, he pursues it, subduing all the riches of his mind to it, rejecting all beauties that are not germane to it; making his own beauty out of the very accomplishment of it, out of the whole work and its proportions, so that you must read to the end before you know that it is beautiful'.
Though there are - naturally - many outstanding examples of the art omitted, this anthology includes many pieces (like Clutton-Brock's) by people who are more or less forgotten now. It's very unusual for a collection of essays to go through several editions, so - though it may now seem to have a disproportionate number of pieces from the mid-C20th - WE Williams was obviously doing something right.
The words of Arthur Clutton-Brock in The Defects of English Prose stand not only as a pretty good description of the form in its heyday, but as a pretty good instance of it:
'The master of prose is not cold, but he will not let any word or image inflame him with a heat irrelevant to his purpose. Unhasting, unresting, he pursues it, subduing all the riches of his mind to it, rejecting all beauties that are not germane to it; making his own beauty out of the very accomplishment of it, out of the whole work and its proportions, so that you must read to the end before you know that it is beautiful'.
Though there are - naturally - many outstanding examples of the art omitted, this anthology includes many pieces (like Clutton-Brock's) by people who are more or less forgotten now. It's very unusual for a collection of essays to go through several editions, so - though it may now seem to have a disproportionate number of pieces from the mid-C20th - WE Williams was obviously doing something right.
December 4, 2023
An exceptional, quirky collection of essays.
There's something very insightful about seeing what interests a writer so much that they choose to commit pen to paper and produce an essay on the subject.
There were some sweet essays, some inspiring essays, some witty essays and a few that did nothing for me (admittedly not many!), but overall, there was a strong range and I had a great time.
There's something very insightful about seeing what interests a writer so much that they choose to commit pen to paper and produce an essay on the subject.
There were some sweet essays, some inspiring essays, some witty essays and a few that did nothing for me (admittedly not many!), but overall, there was a strong range and I had a great time.
July 20, 2021
This is a very good collection of essays. From the 16th century on.
To what degree it is representative, I don't know. I've read them many times. Lovely.
To what degree it is representative, I don't know. I've read them many times. Lovely.
August 11, 2023
An enjoyable read but doesn't leave a lasting impression
Want to read
December 2, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 14, as one of Eight Collections of Essays and Letters Not To Be Missed.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews