With 41 selected essays, Filipino, American, and British.

1. Background readings

History of essay

How to study the essay

Writing the essay

The beginning and the end

Words, sentences, and paragraphs

2. Selected essays

Filipino

walls and words / Alfredo F. Benitez

Chicken for dinner / Antonia Bisquera

On having a haircut / P. C. Carag

Angling for frogs / Delfin S. Dallo

On the familiar essay / Antonio Estrada

The will of a river / Alfredo Q. Gonzalez

Liberal education in a democracy / Arthur T. Heidenreich

Sonia / Francisco B. Icasiano

The art of villa / Teodoro M. Locsin

Return to the primitive / Salvador P. Lopez

Revelry / Maria Luna-Lopez

Art and you / I. V. Mallari

On being ashamed of one's past / Federico Mangahas

The poetry of Rizal / Fernando M. Maramg

The Filipino woman / Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil

Rizal as businessman / Ernesto Y. Sibal

The fine art of loafng / Bernardo Stuart

Of men and tobacco / Teodoro F. Valencia

American

From my ten years in a quandary / Robert C. Benchley

On conversation / Oliver Wendell Homes

The art of book-making / Wahington Irving

Habit / William James

Three days to see / Helen Keller

The titan / F. M. Meese

Walking / Henry David Thoreau

British

Westminster Abbey / Joseph Addison

Sir Roger at church / Joseph Addison, Richard Steele

Sweetness and light / Matthew arnold

Of studies / Francis Bacon

Of revenge / Francis Bacon

Of friendship / Francis Bacon

How shall I word it? / Max Beerbohm

The path to Rome / Hilaire Belloc

On running after one's hat / G. K. Chesterton

On the fear of death / William Hazlitt

Dream-children : a reverie / Charles Lamb

The purpose of a liberal education / John H. Newman

On the unenjoyment of unpleasant palces / Robert L. Stevenson

3. The biography and related forms

The beacon / The editors of newsweek

Louis Pasteur / Grove Wilson

My education / Rafael Palma