''The Best American Essays'' is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.Robert Atwan (ed.), Adam Gopnick (guest ed.). ''The Best American Essays 2008'', Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. It was started in 1986 and is now part of

The Best American Series {{italic title ''The Best American Series'' is a series of anthologies that is published annually by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. Each title within the series covers a specific genre such as short stories or mysteries. The works for ...

published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

.https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/bestamericanseries Articles are chosen using the same procedure with other titles in the Best American series; the series editor chooses about 100 article candidates, from which the guest editor picks 25 or so for publication; the remaining runner-up articles listed in the appendix. The series is edited by

Robert Atwan The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

, and

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

assisted in the editing process until 2000 with the publication of ''The Best American Essays of the Century''.

Guest editors

* 1986: Elizabeth Hardwick * 1987:

Gay Talese Gaetano "Gay" Talese (; born February 7, 1932) is an American writer. As a journalist for ''The New York Times'' and ''Esquire'' magazine during the 1960s, Talese helped to define contemporary literary journalism and is considered, along with ...

* 1988:

Annie Dillard Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 19 ...

* 1989:

Geoffrey Wolff Geoffrey Wolff (born 1937) is an American novelist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer. Among his honors and recognition are the Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994) and fellowships of the National Endowment fo ...

* 1990:

Justin Kaplan Justin Daniel Kaplan (September 5, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City – March 2, 2014 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an American writer and editor. The general editor of ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'' (16th and 17th eds.), he was best kn ...

* 1991:

* 1992:

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

* 1993:

Joseph Epstein Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans. Communi ...

* 1994:

Tracy Kidder John Tracy Kidder (born November 12, 1945) is an American writer of nonfiction books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his ''The Soul of a New Machine'' (1981), about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation. He has receiv ...

* 1995:

Jamaica Kincaid Jamaica Kincaid (; born May 25, 1949) is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). She lives in North Bennington, Vermo ...

* 1996: Geoffrey C. Ward * 1997:

Ian Frazier Ian Frazier (born 1951 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American writer and humorist. He wrote the 1989 non-fiction history ''Great Plains'', 2010's non-fiction travelogue ''Travels in Siberia'', and works as a writer and humorist for ''The New Yorke ...

* 1998:

Cynthia Ozick Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. Biography Cynthia Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children. She moved to the Bronx with her Belarusian-Jewish parents from Hlusk, ...

* 1999:

Edward Hoagland Edward Hoagland (born December 21, 1932) is an American author best known for his nature and travel writing. Life Hoagland was born in New York, New York and attended Harvard University. He joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ...

* 2000:

Alan Lightman Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a Professor of the Practice of the Humanities a ...

* 2001:

Kathleen Norris Kathleen Thompson Norris (July 16, 1880 – January 18, 1966) was an American novelist and newspaper columnist. She was one of the most widely read and highest paid female writers in the United States for nearly fifty years, from 1911 to 1959. N ...

* 2002:

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...

* 2003:

Anne Fadiman Anne Fadiman (born August 7, 1953) is an American essayist and reporter. Her interests include literary journalism, essays, memoir, and autobiography. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for ...

* 2004:

Louis Menand Louis Menand (; born January 21, 1952) is an American critic, essayist, and professor, best known for his Pulitzer-winning book ''The Metaphysical Club'' (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America. L ...

* 2005:

Susan Orlean Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is a journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of ''The Orchid Thief'' and '' The Library Book''. She has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1992, and has contributed articles to many ...

* 2006: Lauren Slater * 2007:

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

* 2008:

Adam Gopnik Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986. He is the author of nine books ...

* 2009:

Mary Oliver Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary ...

* 2010:

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...

* 2011:

Edwidge Danticat Edwidge Danticat (; born January 19, 1969) is a Haitian-American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, ''Breath, Eyes, Memory'', was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or ...

* 2012: David Brooks * 2013:

Cheryl Strayed Cheryl Strayed (; née Nyland; born September 17, 1968) is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel ''Torch'' (2006) and the nonfiction books '' Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail'' (2012), '' Ti ...

* 2014:

John Jeremiah Sullivan John Jeremiah Sullivan (born 1974) is an American writer, musician, teacher, and editor. He is a contributing writer for ''The New York Times Magazine'', a contributing editor of '' Harper's Magazine'', and the southern editor of ''The Paris Rev ...

* 2015: Ariel Levy * 2016:

Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel ''The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...

* 2017:

Leslie Jamison Leslie Sierra Jamison (born June 21, 1983) is an American novelist and essayist. She is the author of the 2010 novel ''The Gin Closet'' and the 2014 essay collection ''The Empathy Exams.'' Jamison also directs the non-fiction concentration in wri ...

* 2018:

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...

* 2019:

Rebecca Solnit Rebecca Solnit (born 1961) is an American writer. She has written on a variety of subjects, including feminism, the environment, politics, place, and art. Early life and education Solnit was born in 1961 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to a Jewish fa ...

* 2020:

André Aciman André Aciman (; born 2 January 1951) is an Italian-American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, he is currently a distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, where he teaches the history of litera ...

* 2021:

Kathryn Schulz Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at ''The New Yorker''. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest. B ...

* 2022:

Alexander Chee Alexander Chee (born August 21, 1967) is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer. Born in Rhode Island, he spent his childhood in South Korea, Kauai, Chuuk Lagoon, Truk, Guam and Maine. He attended Wesleyan University and the I ...

Contributing publications

* ''

The Alaska Quarterly Review ''The Alaska Quarterly Review'' is a biannual literary journal founded in 1980 by Ronald Spatz and James Liszka at the University of Alaska Anchorage and continued unaffiliated in 2020.July 1, 2020 University of Alaska Anchorage ended its financi ...

'' * ''

The Baffler ''The Baffler'' is an American magazine of cultural, political, and business analysis. Established in 1988 by editors Thomas Frank and Keith White, it was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, until 2010, when it moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

'' * ''

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

'' * ''

Electric Literature ''Electric Literature'' is an independent publisher founded by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum in 2009 as a quarterly journal. It launched the first fiction magazine on the iPhone and iPad. The print version of the journal is produced via print ...

'' * '' The Florida Review'' * ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

'' * ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'' * ''

The Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...

'' * ''

Lapham's Quarterly ''Lapham's Quarterly'' is a literary magazine established in 2007 by former '' Harper's Magazine'' editor Lewis H. Lapham. Each issue examines a theme using primary source material from history. The inaugural issue "States of War" contained doze ...

'' * '' n+1'' * ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...

'' * ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived a ...

'' * ''

Oxford American The ''Oxford American'' is a quarterly magazine that focuses on the American South. First publication The magazine was begun in late 1989 in Oxford, Mississippi, by Marc Smirnoff (born July 11, 1963). The name "Oxford American" is a play on ''T ...

'' * ''

The Threepenny Review ''The Threepenny Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California, by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule (March, June, September, December), it offers fiction, memoirs, ...

'' * ''

Tin House ''Tin House'' is an American book publisher based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Portland publisher Win McCormack originally conceived the idea for a literary magazine called ''Tin House'' in the summer of 1998. He enlisted Holly MacArt ...

'' * ''

Transition Magazine ''Transition Magazine'' was established in 1961 by Rajat Neogy as ''Transition Magazine: An International Review''. It was published from 1961 to 1976 in various countries on the African continent, and since 1991 in the United States. In recent y ...

'' * ''

Virginia Quarterly Review The ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This ''"National Journal of Literature and Discussion" ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Best American Essays Book series introduced in 1986

Essays An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

Publications established in 1986 Houghton Mifflin books 1986 establishments in the United States