本书共14个单元，每个单元选取2篇经典散文，每篇散文后面设置了六个部分：作者介绍及背景知识（介绍作家、写作风格、主要作品等以及作品的时代背景等）、散文分析（包括词汇、长难句、主要写作手法、文中典故分析等）、重点语句释义（挑选散文中的句子，要学生用英文进行解释）、翻译（选取散文中的段落，要学生进行翻译练习）、思考题（设计相关思考题，供学生进行课后思考）和延伸阅读。

Unit One
Text A Of Envy
Text B Of Friendship
Unit Two
Text A From An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
Preface to The Fables, Ancient and Modern
Text B On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
Unit Three
Text A A Modest Proposal
Text B A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding
Unit Four
Text A The Folly of Discontent with One's Own Lot
Text B Party Patches
Unit Five
Text A On National Prejudices
Text B The Citizen of the World
Unit Six
Text A Conversation
Text B First Meeting with Johnson
Unit Seven
Text A Common Sense
Text B Inaugural Address
Unit Eight
Text A Modern Gallantry
Text B In Praise of Chimney-sweepers
Unit Nine
Text A On the Ignorance of the Learned
Text B On a Landscape of Nicolas Poussin
Unit Ten
Text A The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power
Text B Beauty
Unit Eleven
Text A Evening Parties
Text B Middlebrow
Unit Twelve
Text A Tradition and the Individual Talent
Text B Heine and the Philistines
Unit Thirteen
Text A Refl ections on Gandhi
Text B On Being Modern-minded
Unit Fourteen
Text A Good Readers and Good Writers
Text B About Reading Books