 Cover of eighth edition | |
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Genre | Anthology,English literature |
| Published | 1962 |
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
| Publication place | United States |
The Norton Anthology of English Literature is an anthology ofEnglish literature published byW. W. Norton & Company, one ofseveral such compendiums. First published in 1962, it has gone through ten editions; as of 2006 there were over eight million copies in print, making it the publisher's best-selling anthology.[1]M. H. Abrams, a critic and scholar ofRomanticism, served as General Editor for its first seven editions, before handing the job toStephen Greenblatt, aShakespeare scholar andHarvard professor. The anthology provides an overview ofpoetry,drama,prose fiction,essays, and letters fromBeowulf to the beginning of the 21st century.
The first edition ofThe Norton Anthology of English Literature, published in 1962, comprises two volumes. Also printed in 1962 was a single-volume derivative edition, calledThe Norton Anthology of English Literature: Major Authors Edition, which contained reprintings with some additions and changes including 28 of the major authors appearing in the original edition.[2]
The second edition ofThe Norton Anthology of English Literature, published in 1968, also comprises two volumes.
The third edition ofThe Norton Anthology of English Literature, printed in 1974, also comprises two volumes. Volume 1 (2,521 pages with a 27-page preface) is divided into four parts: The Middle Ages (edited byE. Talbot Donaldson), The Sixteenth Century (edited by Hallett Smith), The Seventeenth Century (edited byRobert M. Adams), and The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (edited by Samuel Holt Monk and Lawrence Lipking). It added for the first time the complete text of Shakespeare'sKing Lear and Webster'sDuchess of Malfi. Volume 2 (2,516 pages, with a 37-page preface) is divided into three parts: The Romantic Period (edited byM. H. Abrams), The Victorian Age (edited by George H. Ford), and The Twentieth Century (edited byDavid Daiches). It added for the first time the complete text of two short novels, Conrad'sHeart of Darkness and D.H. Lawrence'sThe Fox.
The seventh edition ofThe Norton Anthology of English Literature comprised six volumes, sold in two sets of three. The first set included the volumes "TheMiddle Ages", "The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century", and "Restoration and the Eighteenth Century"; the second set included "TheRomantic Period", "TheVictorian Age", and "The Twentieth Century and After". The writings are arranged by author, with each author presented chronologically by date of birth. Historical and biographical information is provided in a series of headnotes for each author and in introductions for each of the time periods.[citation needed]
Within this structure, the anthology incorporates a number of thematically linked "clusters" of texts pertaining to significant contemporary concerns. For example, "The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century" contains four such clusters under the headings, "Literature of The Sacred", "The Wider World", "The Science of Self and World", and "Voices of the War". The first of these includes four contemporary English translations of an identical passage from theBible, those ofWilliam Tyndale, theGeneva Bible, theDouay–Rheims Version, and theAuthorized (King James) Version; selections from the writings of influential Protestant thinkers of the period, including Tyndale,John Calvin,Anne Askew,John Foxe andRichard Hooker; as well as selections from theBook of Common Prayer and theBook of Homilies.[citation needed]
The seventh edition was also sold in two volumes, which simply compressed six eras into two larger volumes, each volume comprising three eras. Volume 1 comprised the selection of literature from "'The Middle Ages" to the "English Restoration and the Eighteenth Century", while Volume 2 included the selection of literature from "The Romantic Period" to "The Twentieth Century and After".[citation needed]
Another option was the "Major Authors" edition. Compressed into the single volume was a selection of major authors of each period, from the anonymous author ofBeowulf toJ. M. Coetzee.[citation needed]
The ninth edition continued to be sold in the same format as the eighth edition.[3]
The tenth edition of the anthology went on sale in June 2018 and has continued to be sold in the same format as its two prior editions, while adding a host of new writers to its already eclectic range.[4]
The eleventh edition was prepared by seven scholars and went on sale in 2024. It comprises two packages with three volumes each and is also available in a shorter edition with only two volumes covering the period from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The anthology is also available as anebook with embedded videos and other enhanced features on a platform hosted by W. W. Norton.[5]
Published in 1962, the first edition ofNorton Anthology was based on theEnglish literature survey course thatAbrams and fellow editorDavid Daiches taught atCornell University.[6] The anthology underwent periodic revisions. The fifth edition in 1986 included the addition of the full texts ofJames Joyce's "The Dead". The sixth edition, published in 1993, includedNadine Gordimer andFleur Adcock. The seventh edition addedSeamus Heaney'stranslation ofBeowulf,Shakespeare'sTwelfth Night, andChinua Achebe's novelThings Fall Apart.
Greenblatt joined the editorial team during the 1990s: "When Norton asked Greenblatt—who was already editor of 'The Norton Shakespeare'—to join the team as Abrams's deputy in the mid-90s, Abrams said he was initially skeptical because of their different critical approaches, but quickly came around. The two had first met in the 1980s, when they once delivered opposing lectures. 'It was great fun,' Abrams said. 'He always claimed that I bent his sword. I always claimed he had the better, not of the argument, but of the rhetoric of the argument.'"[1] Another addition has been an increase in the number of women authors: "The new edition, Greenblatt said, includes 68 women writers, more than eight times as many as in the first edition."[7]
The ninth edition was released in 2012, marking 50 years of the anthology's existence.[8]
The 1970s saw the emergence ofThe Oxford Anthology of English Literature; its editorial team included leading scholarsHarold Bloom,Frank Kermode, andLionel Trilling. It was discontinued. Bloom, a former student of Abrams', noted: "We were defeated in battle."[1]
The Longman Anthology of British Literature is also a competitor. Of this relationship, Joyce Jensen ofThe New York Times wrote in 1999, "The first stone in the war betweenLongman and W. W. Norton, theDavid and Goliath of the anthology publishing world, has been cast. With the recent publication ofThe Longman Anthology of British Literature, Longman has mounted a challenge to Norton to become the literary anthology of choice in colleges and universities around the country."[9]Longman Anthology editor David Damrosch commented on the seventh edition ofThe Norton Anthology, arguing:
Though I could wish that the new edition of the Norton had reflected more independent thought and less reactive borrowing of the most visible innovations of our table of contents, I am very glad that Norton has now also adopted the six-volume format. Then again, perhaps the Norton hasn't simply been imitating us in its rapid inclusions ofMarie de France,Hogarth,The Beggar's Opera,Frankenstein, and a range of new context groupings whose topics track ours with what may only appear to be beagle-like devotion. TheSeptuagint was produced by independent translators whose versions all came out alike, and this history may have repeated itself here.[10]
The Norton Anthology responded that:
The new Norton is not (as Longman personnel have charged) simply an attempt to copy Longman... Norton has defined its scope by uniting works whose common bond is the English language, claiming that a shared vocabulary is essential to cultural unity.[11]
Independent Canadian publisherBroadview Press also offers a six-volume anthology of British literature that competes with the Norton and Longman anthologies, and a two-volume Concise Edition that competes with Norton's two-volume Major Authors Edition and Longman's two-volumeMasters of British Literature.[12] The editorial team forThe Broadview Anthology of British Literature includes leading scholars such as Kate Flint, Jerome J. McGann, and Anne Lake Prescott and has in general been very well received, though its sales have yet to match those of the competitors from the two larger publishers.[citation needed]
In 2006, Rachel Donadio ofThe New York Times stated: "Although assailed by some for being too canonical and by others for faddishly expanding the reading list, the anthology has prevailed over the years, due in large part to the talents of Abrams, who refined the art of stuffing 13 centuries of literature into 6,000-odd pages of wispycigarette paper."[1]
Sarah A. Kelen summarizes the changes to theNAEL's inclusions of medieval literature through successive editions, demonstrating the way theAnthology's contents reflect contemporary scholarship.[13]
Sean Shesgreen, an English professor atNorthern Illinois University, published a critical history of the anthology in the Winter 2009 issue ofCritical Inquiry, based on interviews with Abrams and examinations of the editor'sNAEL files.[14] Norton president Drake McFeely forcefully denounced the article in a January 23, 2009, story inThe Chronicle of Higher Education.[15]