The Russell Kirk Center: Online Kirk Archives

Selected Short Writings of Russell Kirk

The Living Edmund Burke Posted Nov 2009: Source: From Modern Age, Summer/Fall 1982
How Dead is Edmund Burke? Posted Nov 2009: Source: Queen’s Quarterly Vol. 57 (Summer, 1950), pp. 160–171.
Burke, Providence, and Archaism Posted Nov 2009: Source: A review in The Sewanee Review Vol. 69, No. 1 (January–March, 1961), pp. 179–84.
Burke Dispassionately Considered Posted Nov 2009: Source: A review in The Sewanee Review, Volume LXXIV, Number 2, April–June, 1966.
Burke and the Principle of Order Posted Nov 2009: Source: From The Sewanee Review, Vol. 60 (April–June 1952), p. 187–201.
Edmund Burke and the Constitution Posted Nov 2009: Source: From the Intercollegiate Review, Winter 1985–86; this essay was a condensation of a longer treatment of the same subject on which Dr. Kirk was then working.
Edmund Burke and the Future of American Politics Posted Nov 2009: “We are at the beginning of great troubles.”
Source: From Modern Age, Spring 1987
Why Edmund Burke Is Studied Posted Nov 2009: To resist the idyllic imagination and the diabolical imagination, we need to know the moral imagination of Edmund Burke.”
Source: First published in Modern Age, Summer/Fall 1986
Burke and Natural Rights Posted Nov 2009: Source: Reprinted from The Review of Politics, Vol. 13. No. 4, October, 1951
Burke and the Philosophy of Prescription Posted Nov 2009: Source: From Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 14 (June, 1953), pp. 365–80.
Is Life Worth Living? Posted Jun 2007: Concluding a public lecture, Russell Kirk once assured his listeners: “If you look for the Supernatural, you will find it. I promise you: I have.” From the concluding chapter of Kirk’s third-person autobiography.
Source: Russell Kirk. “Epilogue: Is Life Worth Living?” in The Sword of Imagination: Memoirs of a Half-Century of Literary Conflict (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 471-76. Copyright © 1995. Reprinted by permission of the estate of Russell Kirk.
The Moral Imagination Posted May 2007: The moral imagination is an enduring source of inspiration that elevates us to first principles as it guides us upwards towards virtue and wisdom and redemption.
Source: Russell Kirk. "The Moral imagination." in Literature and Belief Vol. 1 (1981), 37–49. Also published in Reclaiming a Patrimony (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 1982), 45–58. Copyright © 1981 Russell Kirk, Renewed 2007 Annette Kirk.
The Essence of Conservatism Posted Mar 2007: Source: Adapted from The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Conservatism (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1957). Copyright © 1957 by Russell Kirk, renewed © 2002 by Annette Kirk. Used by permission.