Essays

Essays

For Argument's Sake

In praise of high school debate
Becca Rothfeld
The Moment

The Physician as Patient

Medicine after COVID-19
Laura Kolbe
Essays

Camera Mortis

How photographs of the dead helped me mourn
Lili Hamlyn
Essays

My Father's Library

Can you know a man through his books?
Violaine Huisman
Essays

Under the Influence

Is it possible to be an ethical consumer?
Jennifer Stock
Essays

A Glass Essay

Reading Anne Carson post-breakup
Sarah Chihaya

Browse

Essays

Detail of a microchip
Essays

Creativity, Poetic Language, and the Computer

What's distinctly human about writing a poem?
Marie Borroff
June 1, 1971
An old photograph of a churchyard cemetery. Courtesy The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Essays

A Journal of the Plague

The 1918 Influenza
Francis Russell
December 1, 1958
Blue stamps from WWII ration book
Essays

Note on the Home Front

I shall never forget that first winter of gasoline rationing
Eve Riehle
September 1, 1945
A photograph of a London street during WWII.
Essays

After a Visit to England

London during the Blitz
Thornton Wilder
September 1, 1941
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

Thirty Clocks Strike the Hour

Vita Sackville-West
September 1, 1929
A painting of a woman reading at a table.
From the Archives

How Should One Read a Book?

Read as if one were writing it
Virginia Woolf
September 1, 1926