Genre: Letters and Essays

Napoleon’s Letters to Josephine

Napoleon's Letters front cover

Look Inside the Book THE COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED EDITION Napoleon’s Letters to Josephine, 1796–1812 offers an intimate and revealing record of one of […]

A Book of Prefaces

A Book of Prefaces front cover

Look Inside the Book H. L. Mencken’s A Book of Prefaces (1917) is a landmark collection of four essays on American culture […]

In the American Grain

In the American Grain front cover

Look Inside the Book First published in 1925, In the American Grain is a daring and provocative investigation into the origins of […]

A Room of One’s Own

A Room of One's Own cover

Virginia Woolf’s immensely influential and still provocative long essay, A Room of One’s Own, originated from a pair of lectures she presented […]

Free Thought and Official Propaganda

Free Thought and Official Propaganda cover

Previous slide Next slide “Free Thought and Official Propaganda,” a speech delivered by Bertrand Russell in 1922, initially defines freedom of thought […]

Why Men Fight

Why Men Fight cover

Previous slide Next slide Written in the midst of World War I, Why Men Fight lays out Bertrand Russell’s wholesale rejection of […]

What Is Man? and Other Essays

What Is Man cover

Previous slide Next slide What Is Man? and Other Essays showcases Twain at his most insightful and provocative. Brimming with philosophical candor […]

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essential Essays

Ralph Waldo Emerson Essential Essays cover

Previous slide Next slide Ralph Waldo Emerson transformed America by writing in an utterly unique, personal, and insistently optimistic voice about matters […]

The Renaissance

The Renaissance cover

Previous slide Next slide Walter Pater’s enduring work, The Renaissance, ignited impassioned debates and earned profound admiration for its distinctive critique of […]