The Cambridge History of the British Essay

The first major study of the history of the Anglophone essay in its diverse –political, media, public-intellectual, academic, philosophical—contexts.

Denise Gigante (Edited by), Jason Childs (Edited by)

9781316516508, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 July 2024

880 pages
23.6 x 16 x 5 cm, 1.38 kg

'An opportunity to observe a notoriously elusive mode of writing from all sorts of revealing angles. The range of expertise represented by the book's fifty-one contributors gives readers a series of lenses, ground to different focal lengths of interest, through which they can look at aspects of the British essay.' Chris Arthur, World Literature Today Magazine

From ancient influences on the essay as a form of rhetoric to the Irish essay as performance, from British imperial propaganda to African postcolonial resistance, from political pamphlets to the rise of literary professionalism, from gastronomy to ecocriticism, The Cambridge History of the British Essay offers the first authoritative single-volume history of the form's development within the British literary tradition. It restores to the contemporary understanding of the essay an appreciation of its true richness and diversity. The fifty contributors to this volume come from widely diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise that brings out neglected pockets of essayistic activity, by women, by persons of colour, by poets and pamphleteers. Together, they show how the form morphs to serve new contexts and concerns, remaining a vital genre of literary 'attempt' in the fields of journalism, academic study, autobiography and other forms of life writing, and online language arts.

Part I. Forming the British Essay: 1. Ancient influences on the essay Henry Power
2. Surprised into form: the beginnings of the english essay Kathryn Murphy
3. Miscellanies, commonplace books, and the essay Angus Vine
4. Incoherence brought to order: empiricism and the essay Tim Milnes
5. The sermon and the essay Noam Reisner
6. Anger, rhetoric, and early women essayists Merve Emre
7. The polemical essay in pamphlets, newsbooks, and periodicals Andrew Benjamin Bricker and Marissa Nicosia
8. Between public and private: letters, diaries, essays Eve Tavor Bannet
9. The art of criticism: essay as citation Jacob Sider Jost
Part II. The Great Age of the British Essay: 10. Essayistic personae and personhood James Robert Wood
11. Clubs and coffeehouses: sociability and the essay Jon Mee and Jennifer Buckley
12. Loose sallies of the mind: distraction and the essay Natalie M. Phillips and Sydney Logsdon
13. The essay and the rise of the novel Jenny Davidson
14. The periodical essay and the rise of literary professionalism Paul Keen
15. On books: the bibliographical essay Denise Gigante
16. Satire and the essay John Strachan
17. Food and the essay Amy L. Tigner
18. Forms of thought: dreams, reverie, and the essay Margaret Russett
19. The urban familiar essay of the romantic era Uttara Natarajan
Part III. Assaying Culture, Education, Reform: 20. The essay and the theme Thomas Karshan
21. The academic essay: rhetoric and pedagogy Jon Klancher
22. The essay and the rise of university english Alexandra Lawrie
23. Victorian essays in criticism Jason Camlot
24. Nineteenth-century reviews reviewed Robert Morrison
25. Essays in the golden age of the British newspaper Joanne Shattock
26. The essay in the age of Chartism Gregory Vargo
27. Political theory and ethics in the Victorian essay Bart Schultz
28. Plain english: essays and analytic philosophy Erin Plunkett
Part IV. Fractures Selves, Fragmented Worlds: 29. The preface essay Mario Aquilina
30. A brief history of travel and the essay Barbara Schaff
31. Grist for the mill: history and the essay in India, 1870-1920 Priti Joshi
32. The African gold coast essay: straddling fact and prophecy Jeanne-Marie Jackson
33. The short essay in context, 1870-1920 Eric Tippin
34. A room of one's own: the new woman and the essay Rebecca Rainof
35. The essay in the age of catastrophe Rachel Baldacchino
36. Undiplomatic relations: modernism and the essay Michael Wood
37 Feeling real: psychoanalysis and the essay David Russell
38. Transatlantic essayism Philip Coleman
Part V. The Essay and the Essayistic Today: 39. The eye and the i: essay and image Kevin Brazil
40. Of human suffering: the essay and ekphrasis Kara Wittman
41. After empire: postcolonialism and the essay Saikat Majumdar
42. Performance and the Irish essay Paige Reynolds
43. The essay and the public intellectual Peter Marks
44. Essayism in literary theory Ronan McDonald
45. The essay in the career of the contemporary British novelist Martin Paul Eve
46. Blogging in Britain: essays in the digital age Joshua Pugh
47. The essay, ecocriticism, and the Anthropocene Richard Kerridge.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]