Front matter
Reading edition
THE OXFORD BOOK OF AMERICAN ESSAYS
CHOSEN BY BRANDER MATTHEWS Professor in Columbia University Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 West 32nd Street LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY HUMPHREY MILFORD 1914 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright, 1914 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH
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Introductionv
The Ephemera: an Emblem of Human Life 1
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).
The Whistle4
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).
Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout7
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).
Consolation for the Old Bachelor15
Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791).
John Bull21
Washington Irving (1783-1859).
The Mutability of Literature34
Washington Irving (1783-1859).
Kean’s Acting47
Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879).
Gifts62
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).
Uses of Great Men67
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).
Buds and Bird-voices88
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).
The Philosophy of Composition99
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).
Bread and the Newspaper114
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894).
Walking128
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).
On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners166
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891).
Preface To "Leaves of Grass"194
Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
Americanism in Literature213
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911).
Thackeray in America229
George William Curtis (1824-1892).
Our March To Washington241
Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861).
Calvin (A Study of Character)268
Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900).
Five American Contributions To Civilization 280
Charles William Eliot (1834- ).
I Talk of Dreams308
William Dean Howells (1837- ).
An Idyl of the Honey-bee331
John Burroughs (1837- ).
Cut-off Copples’s351
Clarence King (1842-1901).
The Théâtre Français368
Henry James (1843- ).
Theocritus on Cape Cod394
Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846- ).
Colonialism in the United States410
Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ).
New York After Paris440
William Crary Brownell (1851- ).
The Tyranny of Things467
Edward Sandford Martin (1856- ).
Free Trade Vs. Protection in Literature475
Samuel McChord Crothers (1857- ).
Dante and the Bowery480
Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ).
The Revolt of the Unfit489
Nicholas Murray Butler (1862- ).
On Translating the Odes of Horace497
William Peterfield Trent (1862- ).