For more than four hundred years the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this lively, fertile genre. Distinguished from the formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its drive toward candor and confession, and its often quirky first-person voice, the personal essay offers above all a feast of individuality.

 --- From the Publisher

목차

Acknowledgments 
Introduction 
Seneca 
On Noise p. 5
Asthma p. 8
Scipio's Villa p. 10
Slaves p. 12
Plutarch 
Consolation to His Wife p. 17
Sei Shonagon 
Hateful Things p. 24
Kenko 
Essays in Idleness [Selections] p. 30
Ou-Yang Hsiu 
Pleasure Boat Studio p. 38
Michel De Montaigne 
Of Books p. 46
Of a Monstrous Child p. 57
On Some Verses of Virgil p. 58
Abraham Cowley 
Of Greatness p. 116
Addison and Steele 
Nicolini and the Lions (Joseph Addison) p. 123
An Hour or Two Sacred to Sorrow (Richard Steele) p. 126
Twenty-four Hours in London (Richard Steele) p. 129
Love-Letters (Richard Steele) p. 133
Samuel Johnson 
The Boarding House p. 137
The Solitude of the Country p. 141
Maria Edgeworth 
An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification p. 146
Charles Lamb 
New Year's Eve p. 160
A Chapter on Ears p. 165
Dream Children: A Reverie p. 169
The Superannuated Man p. 172
William Hazlitt 
On Going a Journey p. 181
On the Pleasure of Hating p. 189
The Fight p. 198
Robert Louis Stevenson 
The Lantern-Bearers p. 213
An Apology for Idlers p. 222
On Marriage p. 229
Max Beerbohm 
Going Out for a Walk p. 237
Laughter p. 239
G. K. Chesterton 
A Piece of Chalk p. 249
On Running After One's Hat p. 252
Virginia Woolf 
Street Haunting p. 256
The Death of the Moth p. 265
George Orwell 
Such, Such Were the Joys p. 269
Ivan Turgenev 
The Execution of Tropmann p. 306
Lu Hsun 
This Too Is Life p. 326
Death p. 329
Junichiro Tanizaki 
In Praise of Shadows p. 335
Walter Benjamin 
Unpacking My Library p. 363
Hashish in Marseilles p. 370
Jorge Luis Borges 
Blindness p. 377
Hubert Butler 
Beside the Nore p. 388
Aunt Harriet p. 393
E. M. Cioran 
Some Blind Alleys: A Letter p. 404
Roland Barthes 
Leaving the Movie Theater p. 418
Natalia Ginzburg 
He and I p. 423
Carlos Fuentes 
How I Started to Write p. 432
Wole Soyinka 
Why Do I Fast? p. 454
Sara Suleri 
Meatless Days p. 459
Henry David Thoreau 
Walking p. 480
H. L. Mencken 
On Being an American p. 506
Robert Benchley 
My Face p. 511
James Thurber 
The Secret Life of James Thurber p. 514
F. Scott Fitzgerald 
The Crack-Up p. 520
E. B. White 
Once More to the Lake p. 533
The Ring of Time p. 538
M. F. K. Fisher 
Once a Tramp, Always p. 546
Mary McCarthy 
My Confession p. 555
Seymour Krim 
For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business p. 577
James Baldwin 
Notes of a Native Son p. 587
Alas, Poor Richard p. 604
Gore Vidal 
Some Memories of the Glorious Bird and an Earlier Self p. 623
Adrienne Rich 
Split at the Root p. 640
Edward Hoagland 
The Courage of Turtles p. 657
The Threshold and the Jolt of Pain p. 662
Wendell Berry 
An Entrance to the Woods p. 670
Joan Didion 
Goodbye to All That p. 681
In Bed p. 689
Annie Dillard 
Seeing p. 693
Richard Selzer 
The Knife p. 708
Phillip Lopate 
Against Joie de Vivre p. 716
Scott Russell Sanders 
Under the Influence p. 733
Gayle Pemberton 
Do He Have Your Number, Mr. Jeffrey? p. 746
Richard Rodriguez 
Late Victorians p. 756
Selected Bibliography p. 771