For hundreds of years the united states has been attracting immigrants from a variety of different countries, races, and religions to come live in a land full of freedom and opportunity. Their real desire was to become something that depicts pride and honor, an american. Along with the name come a number of different benefits such as, freedom of speech to express your own opinion, freedom of religion, and equality for all, including different sexes, races, religions and status.

As americans, we should be very proud of the privileges we possess because many other countries are not fortunate enough to have all these freedoms. As editor and founder of the best american essays series, atwan has read thousands of examples of the remarkably flexible form. Essays can be lots of things, maybe too many things, writes atwan in his foreward to the 2012 installment in the best american series, but at the core of the genre is an unmistakable receptivity to the ever shifting processes of our minds and moods. If there is any essential characteristic we can attribute to the essay, it may be this: that the truest examples of the form enact that ever shifting process, and in that enactment we can find the basis for the essay’s qualification to be regarded seriously as imaginative literature and the essayist’s claim to be taken seriously as a creative writer. In 2001 atwan and joyce carol oates took on the daunting task of tracing that ever shifting process through the previous 100 years for the best american essays of the century. Recently atwan returned with a more focused selection for publishers weekly: the top 10 essays since 1950.

to pare it all down to such a small number, atwan decided to reserve the new journalism category, with its many memorable works by tom wolfe, gay talese, michael herr and others, for some future list. We were interested to see that six of the ten best essays are available for free reading online. Here is atwan’s list, along with links to those essays that are on the web: james baldwin, notes of a native son, 1955 read it here. john mcphee, the search for marvin gardens, 1972 read it here with a subscription. joan didion, the white album, 1979 annie dillard, total eclipse, 1982 phillip lopate, against joie de vivre, 1986 read it here. edward hoagland, heaven and nature, 1988 jo ann beard, the fourth state of matter, 1996 read it here.

david foster wallace, consider the lobster, 2004 read it here in a version different from the one published in his 2005 book of the same name. To my mind, writes atwan in his article, the best essays are deeply personal that doesn’t necessarily mean autobiographical and deeply engaged with issues and ideas. And the best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb, so they demonstrate a mind in process–reflecting, trying out, essaying. To read more of atwan’s commentary, see his article in publishers weekly. the photo above of susan sontag was taken by peter hujar in 1966. in its broadest denotation, the essay has existed in america almost from the arrival of the first english settlers in 1607. While 17th century colonists had little or no leisure time in which to produce belles lettres, there did exist what we might now call nonfictional literature, ranging from a paragraph or two of the almanac short expositions that questioned natural phenomena to the long chronicle histories.

Growing out of the almanacs were early science essays, primarily on astronomical observations but also on other branches of science such as agriculture, zoology, botany, mineralogy, and meteorology. The clergy of the time, who were often the most educated of the colonists, generally adopted the belief that while god’s mysteries were forever unknowable to humans, it was still their duty to ponder those mysteries. This purpose meant that their scientific writings which appeared not only in almanacs but also in journals and letters to members of england’s royal society were not coldly scientific but tended toward moral interpretation.

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The development of the periodical and serial essays the american essay began in earnest with the mushrooming of american periodicals in the early 18th century. It was modeled closely on the essays of the great contemporary british periodical essayists steele. Most early american essays were addisonian in the sense that they were informal in tone, occasionally satiric, often humorous, most often brief. And like the british essays, american periodical essays were personal, always establishing a sociable intimacy between author and reader. The new england courant, a boston weekly established by benjamin franklin ’s older brother james in 1721, was the first colonial newspaper to carry original essays.

In his autobiography begun 1771 and published in full only in 1868 , benjamin franklin 1706–90 recalled that his brother james had some ingenious men among his friends who amus’d themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit, and made it more in demand. Initially unbeknownst to james was the fact that benjamin himself was also a part of that group. Franklin submitted his earliest essays to his brother’s newspaper with the signature silence dogood 1722. In these 14 pieces, franklin deliberately copied the style of addison’s spectator. However, he also took the dogood papers beyond mere imitation, primarily because the spectator claimed never to have espoused any party with violence, while mrs.

Silence dogood is a frugal, industrious, prosaic widow, sworn mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. Moreover, for all his english borrowings and choice of conventional subjects, franklin succeeded in imparting to the dogood essays a measure of originality and american coloration. Mather byles 1706–88 , grandson of the clergyman increase mather, nephew of cotton mather, and lifelong friend of franklin’s, was also an early periodical essayist.

He joined former couranteer matthew adams and his grandson john adams 1704–40 to write a serial for the new england weekly journal 1727–41. Called proteus echo, it contained essays and poems and appeared weekly for a year. It was more didactic and less diverting than the dogood papers, containing moral essays on such deadly sins as avarice, idleness, envy, and pride, philosophical essays on the ardor for knowledge, the way love blinds man’s reason, and the love of country, and, finally, essays on manners and character. It was more nearly addisonian than the dogood papers, particularly because proteus echo is an old bachelor and widely traveled scholar like mr. While franklin’s dogood papers are on balance the more successful of the two silence dogood has more earthy vitality and dramatic energy, and the papers contain a sense of native idiom and environment that is almost wholly missing from proteus echo , the two serials firmly established the tradition of periodical essays in boston, and led the way for others, which soon appeared in philadelphia, annapolis, williamsburg, and charleston.

Franklin left boston for philadelphia in 1723, and six years later launched a new essay serial in the american weekly mercury 1719–46 called the busy body. He wrote the first four essays in the series and parts of two others, then withdrew joseph breintnall finished the series, which when it ended in september 1729 contained 32 papers in all. The busy body papers range through all the conventional subjects for periodical essays except criticism: manners, morality, philosophical reflection, character, humor. The liveliest entries are those by breintnall which focus on the battle of the sexes.