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Title	Author	Description
American Humor: A Study of the National Character American Humor	Constance Rourke Rourke	Constance Rourke's pioneering "study of the national character" examines such legendary figures as the Yankee, the backwoodsman, and the minstrel singer to show how the popular comic imagination contributed to America's changing self-awareness. Contributors: Greil Marcus
The Anatomy of Melancholy Anatomy of Melancholy	Robert Burton Burton	One of the major documents of modern European civilization, Robert Burton's astounding compendium, a survey of melancholy in all its myriad forms, has invited nothing but superlatives since its publication in the seventeenth century. Contributors: William H. Gass
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays Bolt from the Blue	Mary McCarthy McCarthy	"Fierce, provocative, and lovely, a collection of small masterpieces, by one of the twentieth century's most dazzling minds." —Katie Roiphe Contributors: A.O. Scott
The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships Company They Kept	Barbara Epstein, Robert B. Silvers silvers	Our most remarkable writers share what has influenced them the most: each other.
The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership Crisis of the Negro Intellectual	Harold W. Cruse Cruse	A landmark work of African-American thought written in a period of immense social ferment. Contributors: Stanley Crouch
Dante: Poet of the Secular World Dante	Erich Auerbach Auerbach	An inspiring introduction to one of world's greatest poets and a brilliantly argued essay in the history of ideas. Contributors: Michael Dirda
In the Freud Archives In the Freud Archives	Janet Malcolm Malcolm	"In this brilliant and enjoyable book, a major crisis within one of the most important systems of ideas of our century is presented in the style of a movie vehicle for Jack Nicholson."?Anthony Quinton, The Times Literary Supplement
The Liberal Imagination Liberal Imagination	Lionel Trilling Trilling	The great critic's masterwork makes a case for the necessity of the imaginative works in a society ever more worshipful of the liberal ideals of rationality and progress. "Trilling...shows how criticism, written with grace, style, and a self-questioning cast of mind, can itself become a form of literature, as well as a valuable contribution to how we think about society.—Morris Dickstein Contributors: Louis Menand
Looking Back Looking Back	Baker	In these eleven essays, all originally published in The New York Review of Books, Russell Baker looks back on a group of iconic public figures from his own past.
The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren Lore and Language of Schoolchildren	Iona and Peter Opie Opie	The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren is a pathbreaking work of scholarship that is also a splendid and enduring work of literature. Contributors: Marina Warner