‘The Great Essays’ Competition

This essay competition is designed in conjunction with ‘The Great Essays Online Course’ found here, based on our podcast series ‘The History of Ideas: The Great Essays’.

Each unit of the course concludes with a series of questions about the essayist and ideas discussed in the relevant episode. The course ends with a series of broader questions about the themes of the course and the essay itself. Entrants may write an essay in response to any of these questions (listed at the end of each unit and at the end of the course).

Essays should be no longer than 3000 and no shorter than 2000 words. Your word count should be clearly stated in your submission. Essays can be submitted below; please include your entry as an attachment to the email which will open up when you click the button. Please identify whether the entrant is below or above 18 years of age upon the date of submission. Entries will be judged separately in two age categories based on this information.

Submissions will be open until 12 noon on 31st July 2027, and a winner and runner-up in each age category will be announced before the end of September 2027. Winners and runners-up will be announced in our newsletter, and will have their essays published on our website.

Only essays scored by Pangram or equivalent as 100% human written will be considered. We guarantee that in return the essay competition will be judged by 100% humans.