Study Guide Library

Explore an ever-expanding selection of titles ranging from classic texts to contemporary works. SuperSummary Study Guides feature detailed summaries plus analyses of major themes, symbols, characters, and important quotes—all written by literature scholars and experts. Browse titles alphabetically or by genre.

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All TitlesModern FictionClassic FictionNonfictionPlaysEssaysPoetryMiddle Grade/YA
101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think
Brianna Wiest

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2016

A Confession
Leo Tolstoy

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1880

A Cyborg Manifesto
Donna Haraway

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1985

A Defence of Poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1840

Against Interpretation
Susan Sontag

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1966

A Hanging
George Orwell

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1931

Ain't I A Woman
Sojourner Truth

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1851

Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism
bell hooks

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1981

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Hanif Abdurraqib

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

Allegory Of The Cave
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | BCE

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things
Robert Fulghum

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1986

America and I
Anzia Yezierska

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1922

American Like Me
America Ferrera

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2018

A Message to Garcia
Elbert Hubbard

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1899

A Model of Christian Charity
John Winthrop

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1838

A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1729

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
John Dryden

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1668

An Image of Africa
Chinua Achebe

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1975

A Plea for Captain John Brown
Henry David Thoreau

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1859

Apology
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

A Quilt of a Country
Anna Quindlen

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2001

Areopagitica
John Milton

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1644

A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1929

Ars Poetica
Horace

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1991

A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 269

A Small Place
Jamaica Kincaid

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1988

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
David Foster Wallace

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1997

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
George Saunders

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

A Talk to Teachers
James Baldwin

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1963

Atlanta Exposition Speech
Booker T. Washington

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1895

Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2014

Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education
Matthew L. Sanders

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2012

Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Sigmund Freud

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1920

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat
Winston Churchill

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1941

Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex
Judith Butler

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1993

Borderlands La Frontera
Gloria E. Anzaldua

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1987

Brave New World Revisited
Aldous Huxley

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1932

Checkers
Richard Nixon

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1952

China in Ten Words
Yu Hua

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2010

Cicero: On Duties (De Officiis)
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | BCE

Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1849

Common Sense
Thomas Paine

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1776

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science
Atul Gawande

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2002

Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1850

Conjectures and Refutations
Karl Popper

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1963

Consider The Lobster
David Foster Wallace

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2004

Constitution of United States of America
Constitutional Convention

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1787

Crito
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

Cross of Gold
Robert W. Cherny, William Jennings Bryan

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1896

David Walker's Appeal
David Harry Walker

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1995

Day of Infamy Speech
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1941

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2017

Declaration of Sentiments
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1848

De Profundis
Oscar Wilde

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1905

Dispatches
Michael Herr

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1977

Divinity School Address
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1838

Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1863

Enemies from Within Speech
Joseph McCarthy

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1950

Euthyphro
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

Executive Order 9066
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1942

Exile and Pride
Eli Clare

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1999

Existentialism is a Humanism
Jean-Paul Sartre

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1946

Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Peter Singer

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1972

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
bell hooks

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2000

For the Equal Rights Amendment
Shirley Chisholm

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1970

Four Freedoms Speech
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1941

Fourteen Points
Woodrow Wilson

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Robin Wall Kimmerer

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2003

George Washington's Farewell Address
George Washington

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1796

Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1863

Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1775

Go Carolina
David Sedaris

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2000

Good Energy
Casey Means

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2024

Here Is New York
E. B. White

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1948

High Tide in Tucson
Barbara Kingsolver

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1995

Hōjōki: Visions of a Torn World
Kamo no Chōmei

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1212

Hope, Despair and Memory
Elie Wiesel

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1986

Hope In The Dark: The Untold History of People Power
Rebecca Solnit

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2004

Hope Speech
Harvey Milk

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1978

House Divided Speech
Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1858

How It Feels To Be Colored Me
Zora Neale Hurston

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1928

How Should One Read a Book?
Virginia Woolf

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1926

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays
Kiese Laymon

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2013

How to Tame a Wild Tongue
Gloria Anzaldua

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1987

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
Slavenka Drakulić

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1992

I Am Prepared to Die
Nelson Mandela

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1964

If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?
James Baldwin

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1979

If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
Tim O'Brien

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1973

I Have A Dream Speech
Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1973

In Praise of Shadows
Transl. Thomas J. Harper, Transl. Edward G. Seidensticker, Jun’Ichirō Tanizaki

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1933

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
Alice Walker

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1983

Ion
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read
Leonard E. Read

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1958

Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1946

Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Nicholas Carr

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2008

I've Been to the Mountaintop
Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1968

I Will Fight No More Forever
Chief Joseph

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1877

J'Accuse
Émile Zola

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1898

John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address
John F. Kennedy

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1961

Letter From Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1963