Selected Bibliography of the Personal Essay

Updated May 22, 2012 by Prof. Bruce Ballenger, Department of English, Boise State University

Theory

  • Adorno, T.W. "The Essay As Form." Trans. Bob Hullot-Kentor.New German Critique Spring-Summer (1984): 151-171.
  • Atkins, G. Douglas. "In Other Words: Gardening for love--the work of the essayist."The Kenyon Review 13 (1991): 57-69.
  • - - -.Estranging the Familiar: Toward a Revitalized Critical Writing. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1992
  • - - -.Tracing the Essay: Through Experience to Truth. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 2005.
  • Bensmaia, Reda.The Barthes Effect: The Essay as Reflective Text. Minneapolis: UM P, 1987.
  • Chadbourne, Richard M. "A Puzzling Literary Genre: Comparative views of the essay." Comparative Literature Studies 20 (1983): 133-53.
  • Claus, Karl and Robert Scholes.Elements of the Essay. New York: Oxford UP, 1969.
  • DiYanni, Robert. “Fictitious Facts and the Question of Genre.”What Do I Know. Ed. Janis Forman. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1995.
  • Faery, Rebecca B. "On the Possibilities of the Essay: A meditation."The Iowa Review 20 (1990): 19-27.
  • Fort, Keith. "Form, Authority, and the Critical Essay."College English 32 (1971): 629-39.
  • Good, Graham.The Observing Self: Rediscovering the essay. London: Routledge, 1988.
  • Hesse, Douglas. "A Boundary Zone: First Person Short Stories and Narrative Essays."Short Story Theory at a Crossroads. Susan Lohafer and Jo Ellyn Clarey Eds. Baton Rouge: LSU P, 1989.
  • - - - .”Saving a Place of Essayistic Literacy.” In Passion, Politics, and 21st Century Technologies. Ed. Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe. Logan: Utah State UP, 1999.
  • - - -. “Essays and Experience, Time and Rhetoric.”Writing Theory and Critical Theory. Ed. John Clifford and John Schilb. New York: MLA, 1994.
  • Heilker, Paul.The Essay: Theory and Pedagogy for an Active Form.Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1996.
  • - - -. “Twentieth Century Theories of the Essay.The Essay: Theory and Pedagogy for an Active Form. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1996: 37-64.
  • Joeres, Ruth-Ellen Boetcher, Elizabeth Mittman.The Politics of the Essay: Feminist Perspectives. Bloomington, IN: Indiana U P, 1993.
  • Kauffmann, Lane R. "The Skewed Path: Essaying as Un-methodical Method."Diogenes 143 (1988): 66-92.
  • Kazin, Alfred. "The Essay as Modern Form."The Open Forum: Essays for our Time. New York: Harcourt, 1961. vii-xi.
  • Klaus, Carl H. The Made-Up Self. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2010.
  • Lehman, Daniel W. “Nonfictional Narrative and the Problem of Truth.”Matters of Fact: Reading Nonfiction Over the Edge. Columbus, OH: Ohio State U P, 1997: 1-39.
  • Podhoretz, Norman. "The Article as Art."Harper's July 1958: 74-81.
  • Pollack, Eileen. “The Interplay of Form and Content in Creative Nonfiction.” The Writer’s Chronicle (March/April 2007): 51+
  • Shields, David. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. New York: Knopf, 2010.
  • Zeiger, William. "The Personal Essay and Egalitarian Rhetoric." In Literary Nonfiction. Ed. Chris Anderson. Carbondale: SIU P, 1989.

History

Montaigne

  • Bakewell, Sarah. How to Live or a Life of Montaigne. New York: Other P, 2010.
  • Frampton, Saul. When I Am Playing with my Cat, How do I Know She’s Not Playing with Me? Montaigne and Being in Touch with Life. New York: Pantheon, 2010.
  • Frampton, Saul. When I am Playing with My Cat, How Do I know She Is Not Playing with Me? New York: Pantheon, 2011.
  • Friedrich, Hugo.Montaigne. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, 1991
  • Binkley, Harold C. "Essays and Letter Writing" PMLA, 41.2. (Jun., 1926): 342-361.
  • Heilker, Paul. . “Montaigne and the Early English Essay.”The Essay: Theory and Pedagogy for an Active Form. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1996: 13-35.
  • Hartle, Ann.Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2003.
  • Lowenthal, Marvin.The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne. Jaffrey, NH: Nonpareil, 1999.
  • Melehy, Hassan. “Montaigne and Ethics: The Case of Animals.” L’espirit Creatuer 46.1 (2006): 96-107.
  • Screech, M.A.Montaigne and Melancholy: The Wisdom of the Essays. Lanham, MD: 2000
  • Tetel, Marcel.Montaigne. 1974. Boston: Twayne, 1990.

Other

  • Fraser, Theodore P.The French Essay. Boston: Twayne, 1986.
  • Granger, Bruce.American Essay Serials from Franklin to Irving. Knoxville: UT P, 1978.
  • Hall, Micheal L. "The Emergence of the Essay and the Idea of Discovery."Essays on the Essay. Alexander Butrym Ed. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989. 73-91.
  • Law, Marie H.The English Familiar Essay in the Early Nineteenth Century.Doctoral Dissertation. Ann Arbor: U Microfilms, 1964.\
  • Lopate, Phillip. “Introduction.” The Art of the Personal Essay. New York: Anchor, 1994: xxiii-liv.
  • Newkirk, Thomas. "Montaigne's Revisions." Rhetoric Review 24.3: 298-315.
  • Payne, William Morton.Leading American Essayists. 1910. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries P, 1968.
  • Pollard, David.The Chinese Essay. New York: Columbia UP, 2000.
  • Tanner, William M.Essays and Essay Writing. Boston: Atlantic Monthly, 1917.
  • Walker, Hugh.The English Essay and Essayists. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1915.
  • Watson, Melvin R.Magazine Serials and the Essay Tradition. 1746-1820. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1956.

Criticism

  • Atwan, Robert. "Esctasy & Eloquence: The method of Emerson's essays."Essays on the Essay. Alexander Butrym Ed. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989. 106-115.
  • Bloom, Harold.Modern Critical Interpretations: Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
  • Corrigan, Timothy. The Essay Film. New York: Oxford UP, 2011.
  • Dawson, William J. and Coningsby W. Dawson.The Great English Essayists. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1932.
  • Friedrich, Hugo. Montaigne. Berkeley: UC P, 1991.
  • Howarth, William. "Itinerant Passages: Recent American essays."Sewannee Review 96 (1988): 633-643.
  • I Am Aztlan: The Personal Essay in Chicano Studies. Ed. Chon A. Noriega and Wendly Belcher. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, 2004.
  • Klaus, Carl H. "On Virginia Woolf on the Essay."The Iowa Review 20 (1990): 28-34.
  • Lopate, Phillip. “What Happened to the Personal Essay?”Against Joie de Vivre. New York: Poseidon, 1989
  • Natarajan, Uttara. "The Veil of Familiarity: Romantic Philosophy and the Familiar Essay."SiR 42 (Spring 2003): 24-44.
  • Obaldia, Claire.The Essayistic Spirit: Literature, Modern Criticism, and the Essay. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1995
  • Tetel, Marcel.Montaigne. 1974. Boston: Twayne, 1990.

Pedagogy

  • Anderson, Chris. "Introduction: Literary Nonfiction and Composition."Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy. Chris Anderson Ed. Carbondale: SIU P, 1989. ix- xxvi.
  • Ballenger, Bruce. “An Amateur’s Raid in a World of Specialists: The Essayist as Researcher.”Beyond Note Cards. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999: 72-95.
  • - - - . Crafting Truth: Short Studies in Creative Nonfiction. New York: Pearson and Longman, 2010.
  • Forman, Janis.What do I Know? Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Essay.Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1995.
  • Heilker, Paul. "Twenty Years In."CCC 58.2 (December 2006): 182-212.
  • Henry, Patrick.Approaches to Teaching Montaigne’s Essays. New York: MLA, 1994.
  • Langer, Ulrich.The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2005.
  • Lopate, Phillip. “Reflection and Retrospection: A Pedagogic Mystery Story.” The Fourth Genre (Spring, 2005)
  • Newkirk, Thomas.The School Essay Manifesto.Shoreham, VT: Discover Writing P, 2005.
  • Sanborn, Jean Donovan. “The Essay Dies in the Academy, circa 1900.”Pedagogy in the Age ofPolitics. Ed. Patrician Sullivan and Donna J. Qualley. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1994: 121-138.
  • Spellmeyer, Kurt. "A Common Ground: The essay in the academy."Essays on the Essay. Alexander Butrym Ed. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989. 253-270.
  • Zeiger, William. "The Exploratory Essay: Enfranchising the spirit of enquiry in college composition."College English 47 (1985): 454-66.

Essaysists on the Essay

  • Bloom, Lynn. “Living to Tell the Tale.” College English 65.3 (2003): 276-289.
  • Faery, Rebecca Blevins. “On the Possibilities of the Essay: A Meditation.” Iowa Review 20.2 (1990): 19-27.
  • Gornick, Vivian. The Situation and the Story: The Art of the Personal Narrative. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2001.
  • Hazlitt, William. "On Familiar Style."Hazlitt's Selected Essays. New York: Random House, 1948. 474-482.
  • Hoagland, Edward. "What I Think, What I Am."Tugman's Passage. New York: Random House, 1982.
  • Kramer, Jane. “Me, Myself, and I.” The New Yorker (Sept. 7, 2009): 34-41.
  • Lopate, Phillip. “Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character.” In Writing Creative Nonfiction. Ed. Phillip Gerard. Cincinnati: Story P, 2001. 38-44.
  • Mairs, Nancy. “The Literature of Personal Disaster.” Voice Lessons. Boston: Beacon P, 1994.
  • Monson, Ander. “The Guilty I.” Believer (September 2008): 15-26.
  • Ozick, Cynthia. “She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body.”Atlantic Monthly September (1998): 114-118.
  • Sanders, Scott Russell. "First Person Singular."Secrets of the Universe. Boston: Beacon, 1991. 187-204.
  • Smith, Alexander. "On the Writing of Essays."Essays British and American. Andrew T. Smithberger Ed. Boston: Houghton, 1953.
  • White, E.B. "The Essayist."Essays of E.B.White.New York: Perennial, 1977: ix-xi.
  • Woolf, Virginia. "The Modern Essay."The Common Reader. New York: Harcourt, 1925. 293-307.