George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of

Through close readings of diverse examples by Lamb, De Quincey, Hazlitt, Irving and Poe, this book argues that the familiar essay in the Romantic period embodie

From the pens of spectators, ramblers, idlers, tattlers, hypochondriacs, connoisseurs, and loungers, a new literary genre emerged in 18th century England: the p

This groundbreaking new source of international scope defines the essay as nonfictional prose texts of between one and 50 pages in length. The more than 500 ent