Here are 20 essays by various authors, covering all kinds of subjects. Some are famous, others are gems ferreted out from chapters or passages in books where they have lain hidden for decades. Britannica defines an essay as "an analytic, interpretive, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subjects from a limited and often personal point of view." In short, an essay is neither fiction nor a short story, but a composition designed to educate/persuade more than entertain or inform, though essays sometimes do both, or neither. (Summary by Michele Fry, BC/DPL)

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