Customer Reviews

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Eighth Edition, Volume 1: The Middle Ages Through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're a book lover, how can you not love a book like this? It was my required reading for a literature class, and I was all too happy to have an excuse to buy it. Satisfyingly fat at 3000 pages, it exudes that delicious book smell when you flip through it, and its matte-sheen cover feels good in your hands and protects its sizable contents quite well.

For me, this was worth getting just for Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of Beowulf. You can smell the ocean and hear the armor clank as this readable version places you right there in the sixth century. Along with the usual excerpts from such works as the Canterbury Tales, you get complete versions of King Lear, Twelfth Night, Utopia, and Paradise Lost. After looking over the excerpts from Gulliver's Travels, it appears that sections 1,2, and 4 are presented complete, with only some material edited from section 3, so you get almost all of that, too. The footnotes for this, and all the other works, are enormously useful.

I have a few gripes about the book, however these don't merit the subtraction of a star in the rating. First - this book is SO heavy. Obviously there was no way around this in publishing, because to put this many pages on good-quality paper the laws of physics are working against you. But I have literally suffered backache from bringing it around with me in my book bag, and have had to sorrowfully leave it at home at times because of this. Second, I wish it included a clear list of which major works are presented complete, for those of us who want to make sure to read the whole thing. My final beef is with the editorial introduction to The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale from the Canterbury Tales. Reading this rant about "antifeminist writings" was like stepping from the high halls of classic academia into the junior-college classroom of some washed-up 1970s holdover. I HATE agenda in my education, and in my opinion, applying 20th century (yes, 20th) sentiments to 14th century literature is anachronistic and inappropriate. But such is the state of education these days, and here is your evidence in a volume that should have known better. However, that has been the only thing I have come upon that irritated me.

Buying this book is a great way to get a bunch of classics all at once, and there is so much to it that you can enjoy a long read or a short read anytime you want, once you find a way to work around its mass. I look forward to the years of reading pleasure I'll get from my copy.

The Norton series of anthologies never fails to disappoint, and this is proof that they're not about to. A hefty book, it delivers on its' promise; from cover to cover it is full poems and prose from the Middle Ages clean through to the Eighteenth Century. On (nearly) every author there is a detailed biography, helpful to get inside the mind of the writer and understand where they're coming from. A nice feature is the inclusion of full-length texts. From shorter plays, as Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" through two complete Shakespeare's (whether you believe he wrote them or not :) )and even all the books of Paradise Lost-- and that's just in one time period. Included in the middle are colour plates of a smattering of different items, and while not necessarily critical to the enjoyment or usefulness of the Anthology, it's certainly a nice touch -- a way to give the eyes a break after digesting a few hundred lines of poetry.

Overall, great, both for the student reading through it for a Humanities course to the Accomplished professional reading through on a quiet evening.

I would have given this anthology 5 stars were it not for one small problem. It is paperback and it is extremely large. This is quite literally enough material to have split up into two separate volumes. It is available hardbound and, had I been offered that option at checkout, I would have preferred it.

When I searched for "The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume 1A" this is what it gave me. This is ALL of Volume 1. That means 1A, 1B, and 1C! That means this book is literally 4 inches thick or more and heavy as a rock! Very unwieldy to carry to classes.

Apparently 1A was not sold as a separate piece when I already had Volumes 1B and 1C. Oh well. Still a good textbook.

I have ordered books from here before, and usually they are in better condition, but I bought a used book. It is ripped on some pagses, written it, and one section comes out of the book, but I would have spen $40more on a new one so this one is great! Good save for sure.

The book contents are fine - just what I expected. There are some places where I wish the editors had provided more detail, especially about major writers such as Shakespeare and Marlowe, but I also would not want the book to be any larger than it is.

My "minus one star" is due to the book being just too bulky. This is one of the instances where I think the soft-bound version may be better than the hard-bound (which I have).

Needed this book for my English Lit class. It is a good book, but the print is small. Guess they had no choice so they could get all the different works in.

While there have been changes made to the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1 (or A), there's no mistaking that in its genre, this is a masterpiece. It's easy to quibble with which selections make it in and which versions are used, etc. But this is an incredibly rich resource of early English literature.

This is one of the books that helped foster my love of literature, and that of many others. It is a portal to any number of authors you wish to read in more detail. It's hard not to love a book that gives you introductions to the following authors and works - and many, many more!

Bede and Beowulf
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Julian of Norwich
Thomas Mallory and the Arthurian Legends
Sir Thomas More and Utopia
William Tyndale, John Calvin, John Foxe
The Book of Common Prayer
Queen Elizabeth
Spencer's The Fairie Queene
Sir Walter Raleigh
Many of Shakespeare's sonnets and 2 of his plays
John Donne
Francis Bacon
George Herbert
John Dryden
Jonathan Swift
Alexander Pope
And John Bunyan

The Norton Anthology series does exactly what it does: introduces its readers to a smorgasbord of the best of English literature. Don't let the size or price daunt you. The size is worth it for the breadth and depth of content. As for price, there are many inexpensive used editions around, going back to many earlier editions.

This book should be on every bookshelf!

This is a great book with all sorts of English Literature from Beowulf to Gulliver's Travels. Instead of buying all of these books and poems separately, you can save a lot of money and get all of them in one book. The translation is excellent as well.

The Norton Anthology of English Language broken into two volumes offers the student a broader study and notation of each century's work compared to the Major Authors Editions. I own both and was surprised by some of the titles left out of the condensed version. The footnotes are especially helpful during the Anglo-Saxon & -Norman section as well as Middle English.

I would avoid Norton Anthologies with highlighting. Norton publishes on extremely thin paper and often the highlighting shows through the page. My experience comes from my own use of highlighters while studying, however, as I am the one inflicting the damage to my text, I cannot complain.