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
Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1849

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Gregory Boyle

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2009

Self Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1841

A Message to Garcia
Elbert Hubbard

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1899

A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1729

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Frederick Douglass

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1852

Declaration of Sentiments
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1848

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Jia Tolentino

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2019

Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1836

Consider The Lobster
David Foster Wallace

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2004

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2020

Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1863

The Danger of a Single Story
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2009

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

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2013

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
John Green

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

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

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2017

The Death of the Moth
Virginia Woolf

Fiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1942

De Profundis
Oscar Wilde

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1905

Letter to My Daughter
Maya Angelou

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1987

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2019

The Rights of the Colonists
Samuel Adams

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1772

On Juneteenth
Annette Gordon-Reed

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

Speech to the Second Virginia Convention
Patrick Henry

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1775

A Confession
Leo Tolstoy

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1880

Ninety-Five Theses
Martin Luther

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1517

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
John Dryden

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1668

Ain't I A Woman
Sojourner Truth

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1851

The Talented Tenth
W. E. B. Du Bois

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1903

Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory
Judith Butler

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1988

This is Water
David Foster Wallace

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2009

The Death of the Author
Roland Barthes

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1967

How to Tame a Wild Tongue
Gloria Anzaldua

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1987

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury
Elizabeth I

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1588

A Defence of Poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1840

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
Galileo Galilei

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1615

Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Peter Singer

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1972

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

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2004

Protagoras
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 390

Tradition and the Individual Talent
T. S. Eliot

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1919

Naked
David Sedaris

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1997

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Peggy McIntosh

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1989

Ion
Plato

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

What Is Enlightenment?
Immanuel Kant

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1784

Hope, Despair and Memory
Elie Wiesel

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1986

Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown
Virginia Woolf

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1929

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

Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry
Rudolfo Anaya

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1995

I Will Fight No More Forever
Chief Joseph

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1877

A Quilt of a Country
Anna Quindlen

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2001

George Washington's Farewell Address
George Washington

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1796

These Precious Days: Essays
Ann Patchett

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

The White Album
Joan Didion

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1979

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

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
Cheryl Strayed

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult

Ars Poetica
Horace

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1991

Pericles, Funeral Oration
Thucydides

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | BCE

Cross of Gold
William Jennings Bryan, Robert W. Cherny

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1896

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

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1961

Fourteen Points
Woodrow Wilson

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult

The Collected Schizophrenias
Esmé Weijun Wang

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2019

To the Public
William Lloyd Garrison

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1831

The Book of Delights
Ross Gay

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2019

Modern Fiction
Virginia Woolf

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1925

Why We Crave Horror Movies
Stephen King

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1981

Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1863

Wow, No Thank You.: Essays
Samantha Irby

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2020

Why I Am Not a Christian
Bertrand Russell

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1927

Monroe Doctrine
James Monroe

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1823

The Fallacy of Success
G. K. Chesterton

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1908

You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience
Brené Brown, Tarana Burke

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2021

Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1946

What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
Thomas Nagel

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1974

Here Is New York
E. B. White

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1948

Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1850

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat
Winston Churchill

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1941

The Melian Dialogue
Thucydides

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | BCE

The Perils of Indifference
Elie Wiesel

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1999

Hōjōki: Visions of a Torn World
Kamo no Chōmei

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1212

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1935

On the Shortness of Life
Seneca

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 49

On Indian Removal
Andrew Jackson

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1830

On Fairy-Stories
J. R. R. Tolkien

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1939

I Am Prepared to Die
Nelson Mandela

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1964

Enemies from Within Speech
Joseph McCarthy

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1950

No Name in the Street
James Baldwin

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1972

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
Hanif Abdurraqib

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2017

The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Oscar Wilde

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1891

Executive Order 9066
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1942

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

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1979

Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son
James Baldwin

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1961

Atlanta Exposition Speech
Booker T. Washington

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1895

Tragedy and the Common Man
Arthur Miller

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1949

Total Eclipse
Annie Dillard

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1982

The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Frederick Jackson Turner

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2009

Truman Doctrine
Harry Truman

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1947

Go Carolina
David Sedaris

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2000

Quit India
Mahatma Gandhi

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1942

The Decay of Lying
Oscar Wilde

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1889

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think
Brianna Wiest

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2016

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

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1968