FIFTY GREAT

ESSAYSFOURTH E D I T I O N

Edited by

Robert DiYanniNew York University

Preface xiii

Introduction: Reading and Writing 1

Gloria Anzaldua

How to Tame a Wild Tongue 30

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Facts on the Ground 42

Francis Bacon

Of Studies 52

Dave Barry

Road Warrior 55

Roland Barthes

Toys 5g

Lord Chesterfield

Letter to His Son 62

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood 64

K.C. Cole

Calculated Risks 70

Charles Darwin

Natural Selection 80

Joan Didion

On Self-Respect 92

Annie Dijlard

Living Like Weasels 97

Frederick Douglass

Learning to Read and Write 102

Brian Doyle

Joyas Voladoras 108

Gretel Ehrlich

About Men 112

Ralph Ellison

living with Music 116

Richard Feynman

The Value of Science 126

Benjamin Franklin

Arriving at Perfection 133

Ellen Goodman

The Company Man 137

Mary Gordon

More Than Just a Shrine—Ellis Island 140

William Hazlitt

On the Pleasure of Hating 146

Linda Hogan

Dwellings 157

Michael Hogan

The Colonel 163

Langston Hughes

Salvation 169

Zora Neale Hurston

How It Feels to Be Colored Me 172

Pico Iyer

Nowhere Man 177

Jamaica Kincaid

On Seeing England for the First Time 181

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail ig2

Stephen King

Why We Crave Horror Movies 209

Maxine Hong Kingston

On Discovery 212

Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburg Address 215

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Morals of the Prince 217

Laura Miller

Cat People vs. Dog People 226

N. Scott MomadayThe Way to Rainy Mountain 233

Michel de MontaigneOf Smells 240

Nuala O'FaolainAre You Somebody? 243

George OrwellShooting an Elephant 246

Scott Russell SandersUnder the Influence 254

David SedarisCyclops 268

Lee SiegelTheWorldlsAllThatlstheCase 274

Susan SontagA Woman's Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? 284

Elizabeth Cady StantonDeclaration of Sentiments and Resolutions 288

Brent StaplesJust Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space 292

Jonathan SwiftA Modest Proposal 296

Amy TanMother Tongue 305

Henry David ThoreauWhy I Went to the Woods 312

Sojourner TruthAnd Ain't I a Woman? 319

Alice WalkerBeauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self 321

E.B. WhiteOnce More to the Lake 329

Mary WollstonecraftA Vindication of the Rights of Woman 336

Virginia Woolf

The Death of the Moth 340

Credits 345

Index