The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Edition [Paperback]

Nina Baym (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393972917 | ISBN-13: 978-0393972917 | Publication Date: January 1999 | Edition: 5th

The best-selling survey of American literature from its beginnings to the present day is now brought to readers in an innovative revision. Here are the classic writers of the American tradition -- from Wheatley and Franklin to Poe and Dickinson to Cather, Hemingway, and Ellison. Eleven major works are included in their entirety, among them Nature, Song of Myself, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Daisy Miller, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Death of a Salesman, and Howl. Here too are contemporary and newly recovered writers and traditions -- from Native American Trickster tales to the early best-selling writers Susanna Rowson and Fanny Fern to the contemporary bestsellers Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko. Helpful introductions, headnotes, bibliographies, maps, and timelines accompany the texts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Advice To A Raven In Russia by Joel Barlow
Canto: 1 by Joel Barlow
Canto: 2 by Joel Barlow
Canto: 3. The Pudding Prepared And Eaten by Joel Barlow
Another Letter To Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment by Anne Bradstreet
The Author To Her Book by Anne Bradstreet
Before The Birth Of One Of Her Children by Anne Bradstreet
Contemplations by Anne Bradstreet
The Flesh And The Spirit by Anne Bradstreet
For Deliverance From A Fever by Anne Bradstreet
In Memory Of My Dear Grandchild Ann Bradstreet, Who Deceased by Anne Bradstreet
In Memory Of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth .. Who Deceased 1665 by Anne Bradstreet
In Reference To Her Children, 23 June, 1659 by Anne Bradstreet
A Letter To Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment by Anne Bradstreet
Longing For Heaven by Anne Bradstreet
On My Dear Grandchild Simon Who Died ... One Month And One Day Old by Anne Bradstreet
Some Verses Upon The Burning Of Our House July 10, 1666 by Anne Bradstreet
The Tenth Muse: The Prologue by Anne Bradstreet
To Her Father With Some Verses by Anne Bradstreet
To My Dear And Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet
To The Memory Of ... Thomas Dudley Esq. by Anne Bradstreet
Abraham Lincoln by William Cullen Bryant
The Poet by William Cullen Bryant
The Prairies by William Cullen Bryant
Sonnet--to An American Painter Departing For Europe by William Cullen Bryant
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
To A Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant
The Yellow Violet by William Cullen Bryant
After Great Pain A Formal Feeling Comes by Emily Dickinson
All Overgrown By Cunning Moss by Emily Dickinson
Apparently With No Surprise by Emily Dickinson
As Imperceptibly As Grief by Emily Dickinson
The Bat by Emily Dickinson
Bees by Emily Dickinson
Besides The Autumn Poets Sing by Emily Dickinson
The Bible Is An Antique Volume by Emily Dickinson
The Brain - Is Wider Than The Sky by Emily Dickinson
By The Sea by Emily Dickinson
The Chariot by Emily Dickinson
Choice by Emily Dickinson
Clock by Emily Dickinson
Colloquy by Emily Dickinson
A Country Burial by Emily Dickinson
Despair And Fear by Emily Dickinson
Dying by Emily Dickinson
Exclusion by Emily Dickinson
'faith' Is A Fine Invention by Emily Dickinson
The Farthest Thunder That I Heard by Emily Dickinson
Further In Summer Than The Birds by Emily Dickinson
Further In Summer Than The Birds by Emily Dickinson
The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Emily Dickinson
How Many Times These Low Feet Staggered by Emily Dickinson
I Cannot Dance Upon My Toes by Emily Dickinson
I Felt A Funeral In My Brain by Emily Dickinson
I Like A Look Of Agony by Emily Dickinson
I Never Lost As Much But Twice by Emily Dickinson
I Should Not Dare To Be So Sad by Emily Dickinson
I Think I Was Enchanted by Emily Dickinson
I Would Not Paint - A Picture by Emily Dickinson
I've Seen A Dying Eye by Emily Dickinson
In Shadow by Emily Dickinson
In The Garden (1) by Emily Dickinson
Indian Summer by Emily Dickinson
Intoxication by Emily Dickinson
It Bloomed And Dropt, A Single Noon by Emily Dickinson
It Sounded As If The Streets Were Running by Emily Dickinson
It Was Not Death, For I Stood Up by Emily Dickinson
A Little Overflowing Word by Emily Dickinson
Longing Is Like The Seed by Emily Dickinson
A Man May Make A Remark by Emily Dickinson
The Master by Emily Dickinson
Mine By The Right Of The White Election by Emily Dickinson
Much Madness Is Divinest Sense by Emily Dickinson
My Cocoon Tightens - Colors Tease by Emily Dickinson
My Life Had Stood - A Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson
Myself Was Formed -- A Carpenter by Emily Dickinson
The Mystery Of Pain by Emily Dickinson
Nature - Sometimes Sears A Sapling by Emily Dickinson
Of God We Ask One Favor by Emily Dickinson
Oh Sumptuous Moment by Emily Dickinson
Parting by Emily Dickinson
Post-mortem by Emily Dickinson
Publication Is The Auction by Emily Dickinson
Remembrance Has A Rear And Front by Emily Dickinson
Remorse Is Memory Awake by Emily Dickinson
The Robin's My Criterion For Tune by Emily Dickinson
A Route Of Evanescence by Emily Dickinson
Safe In Their Alabaster Chambers by Emily Dickinson
Shall I Take Thee, The Poet Said by Emily Dickinson
The Snake by Emily Dickinson
Some Keep The Sabbath Going To Church by Emily Dickinson
A Spider Sewed At Night by Emily Dickinson
The Storm by Emily Dickinson
Success by Emily Dickinson
Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant by Emily Dickinson
That Sacred Closet When You Sweep by Emily Dickinson
There Came A Day At Summer's Full by Emily Dickinson
There's A Certain Slant Of Light by Emily Dickinson
This Consciousness That Is Aware by Emily Dickinson
This Is My Letter To The World by Emily Dickinson
This Was A Poet - It Is That by Emily Dickinson
A Thunder-storm (1st Version) by Emily Dickinson
A Thunder-storm (2nd Version) by Emily Dickinson
Title Divine - Is Mine! by Emily Dickinson
To Be Forgot By Thee by Emily Dickinson
To Flee From Memory by Emily Dickinson
We Talked With Each Other About Each Other by Emily Dickinson
What I See Not, I Better See by Emily Dickinson
The Wife by Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights! Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
A Word Made Flesh Is Seldom by Emily Dickinson
The World Is Not Conclusion by Emily Dickinson
You Cannot Make Remembrance Grow by Emily Dickinson
Concord Hymn; Sung At Completion Of Concord Monument, 1836 by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Days by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each And [or, In] All by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hamatreya [different Version] by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Merlin: 1 by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Merlin: 2 by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ode Inscribed To W.h. Channing by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Problem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Rhodora: On Being Asked, Whence Is The Flower? by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Snow-storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Uriel by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Indian Burying Ground by Philip Freneau
On Mr. Paine's Rights Of Man by Philip Freneau
On Observing A Large Red-streak Apple by Philip Freneau
On The Emigration To America And Peopling Western Country by Philip Freneau
On The Religion Of Nature by Philip Freneau
To A New England Poet by Philip Freneau
To Sir Toby by Philip Freneau
Trembling I Write My Dream, And Recollect by Philip Freneau
The Wild Honeysuckle by Philip Freneau
The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Deacon's Masterpiece by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Conclusion by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Excelsior by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Fire Of Driftwood; Devereux Farm, Near Marblehead by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Mezzo Cammin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
My Lost Youth by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm Of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Slave's Dream by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Bryant by James Russell Lowell
Emerson by James Russell Lowell
Hawthorne by James Russell Lowell
Irving by James Russell Lowell
Quiet And Chaste by James Russell Lowell
To The Dandelion by James Russell Lowell
After The Pleasure Party by Herman Melville
Art by Herman Melville
The Bench Of Boors by Herman Melville
The Enthusiast by Herman Melville
The House-top; A Night Piece by Herman Melville
The Maldive Shark by Herman Melville
The March Into Virginia by Herman Melville
Misgivings by Herman Melville
Monody by Herman Melville
The Portent by Herman Melville
To Ned by Herman Melville
A Utilitarian View Of The Monitor's Flight by Herman Melville
Alone by Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
The City In The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe
Dreamland by Edgar Allan Poe
Fairyland (1) by Edgar Allan Poe
Israfel by Edgar Allan Poe
The Lake (version 1) by Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
Romance by Edgar Allan Poe
Romance by Edgar Allan Poe
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe
Sonnet - To Science by Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen (1) by Edgar Allan Poe
Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe
The Valley Of Unrest (1) by Edgar Allan Poe
A Fig For Thee, Oh! Death by Edward Taylor
God's Determinations: Christ's Reply by Edward Taylor
God's Determinations: The Joy Of Church Fellowship Rightly Attended by Edward Taylor
God's Determinations: The Preface by Edward Taylor
Huswifery by Edward Taylor
Meditation 16 by Edward Taylor
Preparatory Meditations, 1st Series: 22 by Edward Taylor
Preparatory Meditations, 1st Series: 38 by Edward Taylor
Preparatory Meditations, 1st Series: 42 by Edward Taylor
Preparatory Meditations, 1st Series: 8 by Edward Taylor
Preparatory Meditations, 1st Series: Prologue by Edward Taylor
Preparatory Meditations, 2d Series: 26 by Edward Taylor
Upon A Wasp Chilled With Cold by Edward Taylor
Upon Wedlock, And Death Of Children by Edward Taylor
When Let By Rain by Edward Taylor
The Prologue by Royall Tyler
His Excellency General Washington by Phillis Wheatley
On Being Brought From Africa To America by Phillis Wheatley
On The Death Of The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, 1770 by Phillis Wheatley
Thoughts On The Works Of Providence by Phillis Wheatley
To S.m., A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works by Phillis Wheatley
To The University Of Cambridge, Wrote In 1767 by Phillis Wheatley
After The Supper And Talk by Walt Whitman
As I Ebb'd With The Ocean Of Life: 3 by Walt Whitman
As I Lay With My Head In Your Lap Camerado by Walt Whitman
As I Sit Writing Here by Walt Whitman
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods by Walt Whitman
Beat! Beat! Drums! by Walt Whitman
Beginning My Studies by Walt Whitman
Broadway by Walt Whitman
Cavalry Crossing A Ford by Walt Whitman
Chanting The Square Deific by Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman
The Dalliance Of The Eagles by Walt Whitman
Elemental Drifts: 1 by Walt Whitman
Elemental Drifts: 2 by Walt Whitman
Elemental Drifts: 4 by Walt Whitman
An Evening Lull by Walt Whitman
Fancies At Navesink: 7 by Walt Whitman
A Hand-mirror by Walt Whitman
Here The Frailest Leaves Of Me by Walt Whitman
I Sit And Look Out by Walt Whitman
Live Oak, With Moss by Walt Whitman
A March In The Ranks Hard-prest And The Road Unknown by Walt Whitman
My Picture-gallery by Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
Now Precedent Songs, Farewell by Walt Whitman
Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City by Walt Whitman
Orange Buds By Mail From Florida by Walt Whitman
Out Of The Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman
Passage To India by Walt Whitman
President Lincoln's Burial Hymn by Walt Whitman
Reconciliation by Walt Whitman
Scented Herbage Of My Breast by Walt Whitman
A Sight In Camp In The Daybreak Gray And Dim by Walt Whitman
The Sleepers by Walt Whitman
The Sleepers (version Of 1881) by Walt Whitman
Song Of Myself by Walt Whitman
Spirit Whose Work Is Done (washington City, 1865) by Walt Whitman
Spontaneous Me by Walt Whitman
There Was A Child Went Forth by Walt Whitman
This Compost: 1. by Walt Whitman
This Compost: 2. by Walt Whitman
To A Locomotive In Winter by Walt Whitman
To A President by Walt Whitman
To The States. To Identify The 16th, 17th, Or 18th Presidentiad by Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept On The Field One Night by Walt Whitman
When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman
When I Read The Book by Walt Whitman
The Wound-dresser by Walt Whitman
Yonnonido by Walt Whitman
Ichabod by John Greenleaf Whittier
Prelude by John Greenleaf Whittier
Snowbound by John Greenleaf Whittier
Still Was The Night, Serene And Bright by Michael Wigglesworth
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Nina Baym (Ph.D. Harvard) is Swanlund Endowed Chair and Center for Advanced Study Professor Emerita of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of The Shape of Hawthorne’s Career; Woman’s Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and About Women in America, 1820–1870; Novels, Readers, and Reviewers: Responses to Fiction in Antebellum America; American Women Writers and the Work of History, 1790–1860; American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences and most recently, Women Writers of the American West, 1833–1927. Some of her essays are collected in Feminism and American Literary History; she has also edited and introduced many reissues of work by earlier American women writers, from Judith Sargent Murray through Kate Chopin. In 2000 she received the MLA’s Hubbell Medal for lifetime achievement in American literary studies.

Jerome Klinkowitz (Ph.D. Wisconsin), is University Distinguished Scholar and Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa. He is the author or editor of over forty books in postwar culture and literature, among them, Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary American Fiction; Kurt Vonnegut’s America; Literary Disruptions: The Making of a Post-Contemporary American Fiction; and The Practice of Fiction in America: Writers from Hawthorne to the Present.

Arnold Krupat (Ph.D. Columbia) is Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the author of, among other books, Ethnocriticism: Ethnography, History, Literature; Red Matters: Native American Studies; and, most recently, All That Remains: Varieties of Indigenous Expression (2009). He is the editor of a number of anthologies, including Native American Autobiography: An Anthology and New Voices in Native American Literary Criticism. With Brian Swann, he edited Here First: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers, which won the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Award for best book of nonfiction prose in 2001.

Mary Loeffelholz (Ph.D. Yale) is Professor of English and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Northeastern University. She is the author of Dickinson and the Boundaries of Feminist Theory; Experimental Lives: Women and Literature, 1900–1945; and, most recently, From School to Salon: Reading Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Poetry. With Martha Nell Smith, she edited the Blackwell Companion to Emily Dickinson. Her essays have appeared in such journals as American Literary History, English Literary History, the Yale Journal of Criticism, and Modern Language Quarterly.

Jeanne Campbell Reesman (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania) is Ashbel Smith Professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is author of Houses of Pride: Jack London’s Race Lives, Jack London: A Study of the Short Fiction, and American Designs: The Late Novels of James and Faulkner, and editor of Speaking the Other Self: American Women Writers, and Trickster Lives: Culture and Myth in American Fiction. With Wilfred Guerin et al. she is co-author of A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature and with Earle Labor of Jack London: Revised Edition. With Kenneth Brandt she is co-editor of MLA Approaches to Teaching Jack London, with Leonard Cassuto Rereading Jack London, with Dale Walker No Mentor but Myself: Jack London on Writing and Writers, and with Sara S. Hodson Jack London: One Hundred Years a Writer. She and Noël Mauberret are co-editors of a series of 25 new Jack London editions in French published by Éditions Phébus of Paris. She is presently at work on two books: Mark Twain Versus God: The Story of a Relationship, and, with Sara S. Hodson, The Photography of Jack London. She is a member of the Executive Board of the American Literature Association and founder and Executive Coordinator of the Jack London Society.

Patricia B. Wallace (Ph.D. Iowa) is Professor of English at Vassar College. She is a contributing editor of The Columbia History of American Poetry; her essays and poems have appeared in such journals as The Kenyon Review, The Sewanee Review, MELUS and PEN America. She has been a recipient of fellowships from the NEA, the Mellon Foundation, and the ACLS. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 2700 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (Np); 5th edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393972917
• ISBN-13: 978-0393972917
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars another daunting literary anthology?, December 13, 2002

By 

Leah Freeman (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Edition (Paperback)

The misleading title of this anthology is the first thing that comes to mind when receiving it in the mail: "...Shorter Fifth Edition." After lugging it along on my hike to class every morning for the past semester, I have a few issues with that proudly displayed "shorter." There are few books I can think of that aren't shorter than this one. Length (and weight) aside, the comprehensiveness of the anthology is amazing. As an English major, I've read a lot of anthologies, but this one stands out among them. In addition to the standard fare (T. S. Eliot, "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Huck Finn") that we English majors read in class after class, it features a diverse range of refreshing and new entries. Every point of view under the ridiculously broad umbrella of Americanness seems to be represented here: the rarely-seen chants and myths of the Native Americans, the poetry of slaves, and an impressive number of women writers are all accounted for. It's a relief to read an anthology that doesn't just have the same old prose as every other anthology, and for that, I'm more than willing to drag the heavy book to and from campus.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Volume II: Lacks titles by major figures, May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Norton Anthology of American Literature (Paperback)

While this anthology provides a wonderful array of texts by diverse authors, it is difficult to use in a survey course without supplementation. Given the high cost of the volume, it is difficult to justify asking students to purchase additional texts. However, to give two examples, both Fitzgerald and Hemingway are represented by just one story apiece. Surely Jack London or Frank Norris could have been limited to one text each in order to include more short selections or, better, a full novel by one or both of these important writers. I found it difficult to plan a semester that offered a full survey of Am lit using only this anthology.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For a Beginning Library, May 11, 2000

By 

Curtis Barton (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Edition (Paperback)

One of the joys of life is found in reading and starting a collection for your own libary. I am a college student and had to use this shorter edition for my Major American Authors course. It provides a great way to meet many different writers and see what you personally like. It is true that your collection of books should show something about your personality; therefore, the most helpful part of this anthology is the amount of writers you will be able to become aquainted with and see if you like.

It provides more help by giving beautiful introductions and biographies of all of the writers included. I like the mix of short stories and some full length novels too. Very helpful and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking to start a little library of their own.