Selected Bibliography of the Personal Essay
Updated May 22, 2012 by Prof. Bruce Ballenger, Department of English, Boise
State University
bballeng@boisestate.edu
Theory
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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.
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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
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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): 342361.
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.
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Screech, M.A. Montaigne and Melancholy: The Wisdom of the Essays.
Lanham, MD: 2000
Tetel, Marcel. Montaigne. 1974. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
Other
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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
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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.
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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
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Anderson, Chris. "Introduction: Literary Nonfiction and Composition." Literary
Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy. Chris Anderson Ed. Carbondale: SIU
P, 1989. ixxxvi.
Ballenger, Bruce. “An Amateur’s Raid in a World of Specialists: The Essayist as
Researcher.” Beyond Note Cards. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1999: 7295.
- - - . 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) http://www.philliplopate.com/reflection.html
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 of Politics. 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
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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.
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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.