Compiles a selection of the best literary essays of the year 1987 which were originally published in American periodicals.

Foreword /Robert Atwan -- Introduction / Annie Dillard -- London -- 1944 / Mary Lee Settle -- Kinds of Water / Anne Carson -- After Yitzl / Albert Goldbarth -- Okinawa : The Bloodiest Battle of All / William Manchester -- The Feeling of Flying / Samuel Hynes -- Gettysburg / Arthur C. Danto -- Home / William Kittredge -- Heroes Among the Barbarians / James McConkey -- My Two One-Eyed Coaches / George Garrett -- Beacons Burning Down / Bernard Cooper -- L'Après-midi de Mary Garden / Paul Horgan -- The Heart of the Seasons / Elizabeth Hardwick -- Dreaming in Public : A Provincetown Memoir / Susan Mitchell -- On the Pilgrim's Path to Lourdes / Eleanor Munro -- A Mask on the Face of Death / Richard Selzer -- Walls : A Journey to Auburn / Kenneth A. McClane -- Notes from the Country Club / Kimberly Wozencraft -- Wadi-Bashing in Arabia Deserta / Russell Fraser -- The Honorable Member for Houghton / E.J. Kahn, Jr. -- Reading Philosophy at Night / Charles Simic -- Biographical notes -- Notable essays of 1987.