Review by Booklist Review
Bacon, Butler, Addison, Lamb, Hazlitt, Thoreau. They're all here, along with 114 of their peers--four centuries of the best of their kind. With their white maleness, all except Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, V. S. Naipaul, 12 women, and Jan Morris defy the demographic dictates of multiethnic, multicultural feminists. Gross may well be gambling that resurgent interest in the essay form will counteract the trendy political liabilities of these past masters. He also must hope that the indisputability of the canon he reaffirms will mitigate objections to his omission of such contemporaries as Hoagland, Dillard, Angell, Chatwin, and McPhee. Readers excited by the essay form will relish the arguments of these classics and will return to the volume frequently to learn something about literary tradition and change, and to invigorate the inexhaustible subject of the familiar essay--everyday life. ~--Roland Wulbert
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
