The Abundance - Narrative Essays Old and New

In recognition of her long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author herself. With a foreword by Geoff Dyer.

“A writer who never seems tired, who has never plodded her way through a page or sentence, Dillard can only be enjoyed by a wide-awake reader,” warns Geoff Dyer in his foreword to this stellar collection. Carefully culled from her past work, The Abundance is quintessential Annie Dillard, delivered in her fierce and undeniably singular voice, filled with fascinating detail and metaphysical fact. The pieces within will exhilarate both admiring fans and a new generation of readers, having been “re-framed and re-hung,” with fresh editing and reordering by the author, to situate these now seminal works within her larger canon.

The Abundance reminds us that Dillard’s brand of “novelized nonfiction” pioneered the form long before it came to be widely appreciated. Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through neighborhood streets, a teenager memorizes Rimbaud’s poetry—with beauty and irony, inviting readers onto sweeping landscapes, to join her in exploring the complexities of time and death, with a sense of humor: on one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar.

Including such classic essays as "Total Eclipse," "A Writer in the World" and "On Foot in Virginia's Roanoke Valley," The Abundance exquisitely showcases Annie Dillard’s enigmatic, enduring genius, as Dillard herself wishes it to be marked.

This career-spanning collection is an invitation to see the world through Dillard’s wide-awake eyes—a world where the familiar becomes astonishing.

A Masterwork of the American Essay: Discover why Dillard is considered a master of the form in this landmark collection, personally curated and edited by the author to define her legacy. Unforgettable Nature Writing: Witness the shocking and sublime moments Dillard is famous for—from a total solar eclipse that feels like the end of the world to an eagle falling from the sky with a weasel locked to its throat. The Writing Life: Go behind the essays with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who explores what it means to be a “writer in the world,” grappling with the beauty and terror of creation. Metaphysical Inquiry: Dive into the profound questions of existence as Dillard confronts the mysteries of time, death, suffering, and consciousness with a voice that is at once fierce, lyrical, and unflinching.