The essay is one of the richest of all literary forms and it is used for poetry, satire, fantasy, and sustained argument. Containing 140 essays by 120 British and American writers, this collection provides a selection of writings by such writers as Addison, Steele, Hazlitt, Dickens, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, James Thurber, Graham Greene, and Clive James. The anthology touches on topics as diverse as anger, pleasure, Gandhi, wasps, size, Beethoven, potato crisps, and the demolition of Westminster Abbey.