Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: v. The classic survey of American literature from its origins to , The Norton Anthology of American Literature offers the work of writers -- 38 newly included.
From trickster tales of the Native American tradition to bestsellers of early women writers. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published March 6th by W. More Details Other Editions 9. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list ». Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jan 22, c. As ever Norton has produced a wonderful reference book with some of the best American Literature excerpts for readers to explore.
These excerpts are made even better by the historical background given for each author, placing it firmly in a time of change and influence. With this context and the helpful footnotes, it's easy to become immersed in literature written hundred of years ago. I look forward to reading every piece in this book. Jun 19, Dav rated it it was amazing Shelves: seriesprime. This collection proceeded from a series of other anthologies including English Literature and Poetry.
It was first published in by W. Reading it in this format, a super fat paper back with rice paper thin pages, can be annoying--holding it, turning pages or reading a curved page. Breaking the spine helps lay it flat, but it does break it and pages loosen. I anticipated that the various narratives found in the collection would teach me more about American history.
But, what surprised and touched me was the unique blend of history, insight, support and love found in the letters between John and Abigail Adams. Although there are separate books that contain the Adams' letters alone, "The Book of Love" piece in the goodreads' newsletter reminded me of this wonderful anthology--which I purchased in a travel shop in Barcelona during the Summer of Although there are separate books that contain the Adams' letters alone, I think part of the joy for me came from reading them after getting somewhat settled into the writing of the period by reading some of the earlier letters included in this volume.
Sep 17, Laura Hauschildt rated it really liked it. I class during my junior year of college. It was a great textbook. I'm a fan of most all the Norton texts I used during college. A selection of American writing from the time the Puritans landed to the beginning of the Civil War. It begins with histories of the early settlements, personal diaries and journals of the settlers, and their sermons and poems. This is followed by the revolutionary writings by Thomas Jefferson , Thomas Paine , and Benjamin Franklin including the text of the Declaration of Independence.
The latter two-thirds of the book includes work by the great nineteenth century writers: the guilty pleasures of A selection of American writing from the time the Puritans landed to the beginning of the Civil War. The latter two-thirds of the book includes work by the great nineteenth century writers: the guilty pleasures of Edgar Allen Poe , the romanticism of Nathaniel Hawthorne , the heroic individualism of Ralph Waldo Emerson , the profound conscience of Henry David Thoreau , the epic perspective of Herman Melville , the eccentricity of Emily Dickinson and the democratic spirit of Walt Whitman.
As often happens with anthologies, one notices not only what is included, but what is left out. Plus, the anthology includes letters by some of the writers represented, supplying an additional perspective on their work. Aug 23, Kristin rated it really liked it. Okay, so not as good as the British versions, both because the British ones are three times as big and the early American writing isn't my favorite, but still enjoyable.
I breezed through the first two sections, namely because I didn't have to read anything except a short biography of Anne Bradstreet according to GRE test prep material, and read only the third section in detail. I have always wanted to read Bartleby, the Scrivener and this book gave me that chance. I also enjoyed the excerpt fro Okay, so not as good as the British versions, both because the British ones are three times as big and the early American writing isn't my favorite, but still enjoyable.
I also enjoyed the excerpt from Walden more than I expected to, namely the chapter on economy. A lot of what Thoreau had to say still has much relevance today, particularly with regard to people's obsession with possessions.
And I had no idea that Walt Whitman was gay and wrote such sexual poetry. That was definitely left out when I studied his poems in elementary school. The person who discovered the item, or, in this case, created it, has to convince potential buyers to believe in him.
The meet-cute that supposedly put him together with this great catch has to be both incredible and believable; it has to at once explain not only how he discovered it, but why no one else before him did. In particular, the color of the paper looked a shade too light. Still, this could be legitimately explained in a number of ways and was far from disqualifying. In general, two items from the same press, printed by the same man within a year or so of one another, could be expected to have a lot of things in common.
But of early Cambridge Press works, this is not necessarily true. In fact, given the resources of the tiny press in the just-founded colony, inconsistency was expected. It was at this point that Schiller, his bookselling partner, and Hofmann discussed the next steps — and figures. Instead of the standard commission, Hofmann insisted that Schiller and his partner become part owners of the document.
In fact, like Zinman before him, one of the only things Gilreath found disquieting was the shade of the paper, which he felt was not dark enough to match that of the Bay Psalm Book. As it happened, the lightness of the paper would later suggest its authenticity. The only known way to artificially age iron gall ink was to heat it, a process whose byproduct was darkening paper. By that point, connoisseurship had not exposed the broadside as an obvious fake, so science was up to bat.
Among other things, a fiber analysis of the paper and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry of the ink were conducted. It was difficult not to be optimistic. No one could seem to put a dent in the thing. Worse yet, Hofmann had given Schiller orders not to reveal his name to potential buyers.
As it happens, the provenance issue is not one that is meant to guard against forgery as much as it is against bad title. The 20th century saw a lot of transactions of works of art between parties neither of which owned the item, so public institutions are leery of buying things without knowing for sure who the rightful owner is. The Library of Congress passed. Mark Hofmann, for his part, was smart to insist his name be kept out of the discussion, even if his anonymity is what partially kept the Library of Congress from buying the document.
They ultimately came to a similar conclusion: it could not be proven to be a fraud. That ended the discussion. On October 15, , seven months after he first phoned Schiller with his news, Hofmann murdered, with homemade bombs, Kathleen Sheets and Steve Christenson.
Up to his neck in debt, he had decided the best way to keep Salt Lake City creditors off his tail while he waited on a financial windfall was to stall and distract them with mayhem. Alas, the next day another of his bombs, meant for someone else, blew up his car. While he was in the hospital, police searched his house and discovered not only the equipment necessary to make the bombs, but also what he had used to construct so many of the forgeries he had sold, or was planning to sell, to collectors, dealers, and institutions.
It is interesting to speculate about what would have happened if either the Library of Congress or the American Antiquarian Society had agreed to a purchase.
As it turns out, making even a near-perfect copy of the most important item in American bibliographic history is not a good way to get quick cash. Still, as testament to how well-made it was, the question of authenticity outlasted even these events. Much of the information in this piece came from the efforts of James Gilreath. As an Americana specialist at the Library of Congress, he was not only one of the first folks to examine the broadside in , but he wrote about his experience, and encouraged others to do so, in a collection he edited called The Judgment of Experts.
I sometimes assign parts of this work for a class I teach on rare book crime. The rest of the story writes itself. Of course, my experience with federal indictments is that they are fairly conservative on such things. Gilreath was not much of a thief, even by the standards of insiders. And this, as it happens, coincides nicely with the story of Massimo De Caro , a man who pulled off a good forgery but who is, by any standard, a mediocre thief.
But that is the way it often goes with rare book thieves, especially those with inside access, who too often confuse having keys to the place with being clever. Who cares about canons. Normies and the middle class, apparently. Like this website. And apparently just me. In try to inject relevancy and actual thought, some juice, some life.
But to no avail. How is this website even still in existence??? Also, female dramatists have only really been producing for like forty or fifty years, and nobody wants to spend that much time on the fucking Baby Boomers. Think outside your box. Great presentation of the data, and might I suggest a useful follow-on: these same attributes presented on a timeline—i. Are we getting better, or swimming in an infinity pool?
The Baby Boomers got everything they had from their parents, including all of their ideas. They left their kids nothing. To the degree that the canon is unbalanced, its just historical happenstance that white males occupy large swaths of it. But if I want to learn how literature got to where it is today I want an honest look at the works that moved Western Culture.
What Canon? I browse the aisles of my local independent book store. I think I have enough smarts to make my own canon. So you see, it is personal. No one need dictate what you should read. No one should denigrate what another reads. The fact is that these canonical authors are what is being taught as the most important voices in literature today to high school and college students. You can all pretend that its antiquated mumbo jumbo but it sets the baseline that many people never push past.
As a high school English teacher, we believe our mandate among others is to teach cultural literacy and give them a baseline of the classics with the idea that they can then push past them and discover a whole world of literature out there in the Wild West of college. So when we tell them that the majority of authors are dead, white males, we perpetuate that hegemony.
Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Everyone has her own Eileen Chang story. For many readers, the story crystallizes in a single horrifying detail. First you gasp. Then you thrill. Before Joan Didion , there was Eileen Chang. She could, with a single phrase, take you hostage.
Chang was born in Shanghai in the s, the daughter of violent extremes. Her mother was an elegant socialite, the product of a Western education; her father was a violent opium addict, descended — ironically enough — from the anti-opium crusader Li Hongzhang.
After her father took a concubine, her mother fled for Western Europe, where she skied the Alps in bound feet. Chang was five years old. Her father promised to end his relationship with his concubine and his opium. Neither promise panned out. After the divorce, Chang and her younger brother lived with their father. Their mother fled again to France, studying art.
She would not return for nearly a decade. From an early age, Chang understood that she would survive through her style. Almost immediately after her escape, she published an account of her incarceration in the Shanghai Evening Post. But really, all of her work was a series of little reunions with the past. She was always attentive; it was always present. Much of her later fiction captures the painful claustrophobia of their relationship; in Fall of the Pagoda , her stand-in, Lute, lives in the family compound, penned in with luxury and the stench of opium.
Standing to one side, I looked up at her, awash with envy and unable to wait until I grew up. Above all, the girl was a stylist.
She swooned after smells, sounds, colors. In her writing, the result is cinematically crisp, and phantasmagorical. The flat waning moon got lower, lower and larger, and by the time it sank, it was like a red gold basin. The sky was a cold, bleak crab-shell blue.
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