Some of your favorite non-fiction essays?

[thecreature]

I was reading Norman Mailer's "The White Negro" the other day and it got me thinking about looking into more of his essays. Upon doing so, I realized that the world of non-fiction as written by fiction writers is probably chalk full of interesting insight.

Ambrose Bierce, famous more for his weird tales, put out a non-fiction collection called "Shadow on the Dial" that deals with various political and social criticism. Borges has an good collection called "Non-Fictions" that puts together his usually masterful criticisms and thoughts. Norman Mailer is great.

Have any favorites that you'd like to share?

[dfloyd]

previously published in the New Yorker. The essay on how you'll never be lonely if you have books is interesting and quite true.

The Essays of Emerson are still interesting today, as are those of Francis Bacon.

[stlukesguild]

Michel de Montaigne- Collected Essays
R.W. Emerson- Essays
H.D. Thoreau- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Civil Disobedience, Walden
J.L. Borges- Selected Non-Fictions, Other Inquisitions
Thomas de Quincey- Confessions of an English Opium Eater, On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts, Suspiria de Profundis, The English Mail Coach, Recollections of the lakes and the Lake Poets
Charles Lamb- Essays of Elia
Francis Bacon- Essays
Thomas a' Kempis- The Inner Life
Seneca- Dialogues (essays)
Paul Valery- Essays
Walter Pater- The Renaissance: The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, Appreciations, with an Essay on Style
T.S. Eliot- Essays, especially Tradition and the Individual Talent
Wallace Stevens- Essays, Speeches, Notes from Opus Posthumous.
John Ruskin- The Stones of Venice, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Modern Painters, Selected Writings
Samuel Johnson- Selected Writings
Andre Malraux- The Voices of Silence
Edgar Allen Poe- On Composition

[Seasider]

"A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf.For me no other contest.

[breathtest]

the doors of perception - aldous huxley

[The Comedian]

Charles Lamb- Essays of Elia

Nonfiction is my preferred genre. And I've, unfortunately, never gotten around to reading Charles Lamb's work. I've always meant to.

To the OP -- St. Luke's list is really good. A few modern (American) essayists whose work I really enjoy are Barry Lopez and Scott Russel Sanders.

[Syd A]

I think the original poster asked about non-fiction essays written by fiction writers. However, just in case I'm wrong, "Slavery in Massachusetts" and "Life Without Principle" by Thoreau are pure gold.

[DanielBenoit]

Give me Montaigne or Emerson and I'm happy for the rest of my life. Both wrote essays titled Experience and are in my opinion their best works.

[OrphanPip]

Francis Bacon's essays are kind of the standard that later English essay writing was built on. I'm also much more sympathetic to Bacon's inductive approach as opposed to the deductive approach taken by essayist like Montaigne. Not to mention the fact that "The Advancement of Learning" pretty much kicks off the organized scientific revolution in England that produced geniuses like Hook and Newton.

Woolf's Room of One's Own is very good too.

Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" and "De Profundis" are both worth reading as well, the latter being a letter and not an essay.

[Modest Proposal]

I think George Orwell's essays are far superior to his fiction. Percy Walker and E. B. White are both great 20th century essayists as well. Though, probably none of these compare with the greats in stlukes's list.

Some things not yet mentioned:
'Hawthorne and His Mosses' -- Herman Melville
Anything by George Steiner.
Anything by J. S. Mills

[DanielBenoit]

I noticed Mr. Modest Proposal's presence here and I hit myself on the head and thought,-- how ever did you forget to mention Swift?

-A Modest Proposal - Biting satire at its best.

-Battle of the Books