On the Pleasure of Hating
by William Hazlitt | 
The Essays
by Francis Bacon | 
The Givenness of Things
by Marilynne Robinson | 
Unpopular Essays
by Bertrand Russell | 
The Complete Essays
by Michel de Montaigne | 
The Proper Study of Mankind
by Isaiah Berlin | 
Self-Reliance and Other Essays
by Ralph Waldo Emerson | 
Living, Thinking, Looking
by Siri Hustvedt | 
Sceptical Essays
by Bertrand Russell | 
Self-Reliance
by Ralph Waldo Emerson | 
The Death of Adam
by Marilynne Robinson | 
On Seeing and Noticing
by Alain de Botton |
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
by Albert Camus | 
Against Everything
by Mark Greif | 
Facing Unpleasant Facts
by George Orwell |
Considered the inventor of the essay itself, Michel de Montaigne published Essays (Essais, literally "Attempts") in 1850. Known for his skill at merging serious intellectual debate with personal anecdotes, his vast work collects together some of the most influential essays the world has ever seen, shaping the thoughts Blaise Pascal, Rene Descartes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stefan Zweig, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Isaac Asimov among others. Montaigne stated that his aim in writing these works was to describe humankind, including himself, with complete frankness.