Part I. Forming the British Essay: 1. Ancient influences on the essay Henry Power; 2. Surprised into form: the beginnings of the english essay Kathryn Murphy; 3. Miscellanies, commonplace books, and the essay Angus Vine; 4. Incoherence brought to order: empiricism and the essay Tim Milnes; 5. The sermon and the essay Noam Reisner; 6. Anger, rhetoric, and early women essayists Merve Emre; 7. The polemical essay in pamphlets, newsbooks, and periodicals Andrew Benjamin Bricker and Marissa Nicosia; 8. Between public and private: letters, diaries, essays Eve Tavor Bannet; 9. The art of criticism: essay as citation Jacob Sider Jost; Part II. The Great Age of the British Essay: 10. Essayistic personae and personhood James Robert Wood; 11. Clubs and coffeehouses: sociability and the essay Jon Mee and Jennifer Buckley; 12. Loose sallies of the mind: distraction and the essay Natalie M. Phillips and Sydney Logsdon; 13. The essay and the rise of the novel Jenny Davidson; 14. The periodical essay and the rise of literary professionalism Paul Keen; 15. On books: the bibliographical essay Denise Gigante; 16. Satire and the essay John Strachan; 17. Food and the essay Amy L. Tigner; 18. Forms of thought: dreams, reverie, and the essay Margaret Russett; 19. The urban familiar essay of the romantic era Uttara Natarajan; Part III. Assaying Culture, Education, Reform: 20. The essay and the theme Thomas Karshan; 21. The academic essay: rhetoric and pedagogy Jon Klancher; 22. The essay and the rise of university english Alexandra Lawrie; 23. Victorian essays in criticism Jason Camlot; 24. Nineteenth-century reviews reviewed Robert Morrison; 25. Essays in the golden age of the British newspaper Joanne Shattock; 26. The essay in the age of Chartism Gregory Vargo; 27. Political theory and ethics in the Victorian essay Bart Schultz; 28. Plain english: essays and analytic philosophy Erin Plunkett; Part IV. Fractures Selves, Fragmented Worlds: 29. The preface essay Mario Aquilina; 30. A brief history of travel and the essay Barbara Schaff; 31. Grist for the mill: history and the essay in India, 1870-1920 Priti Joshi; 32. The African gold coast essay: straddling fact and prophecy Jeanne-Marie Jackson; 33. The short essay in context, 1870-1920 Eric Tippin; 34. A room of one's own: the new woman and the essay Rebecca Rainof; 35. The essay in the age of catastrophe Rachel Baldacchino; 36. Undiplomatic relations: modernism and the essay Michael Wood; 37 Feeling real: psychoanalysis and the essay David Russell; 38. Transatlantic essayism Philip Coleman; Part V. The Essay and the Essayistic Today: 39. The eye and the i: essay and image Kevin Brazil; 40. Of human suffering: the essay and ekphrasis Kara Wittman; 41. After empire: postcolonialism and the essay Saikat Majumdar; 42. Performance and the Irish essay Paige Reynolds; 43. The essay and the public intellectual Peter Marks; 44. Essayism in literary theory Ronan McDonald; 45. The essay in the career of the contemporary British novelist Martin Paul Eve; 46. Blogging in Britain: essays in the digital age Joshua Pugh; 47. The essay, ecocriticism, and the Anthropocene Richard Kerridge.