What do you think?
Rate this book
The Norton Anthology of American Literature : Shorter Edition
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.
2879 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1999
33 people are currently reading
453 people want to read
About the author
Nina Baym
39 books16 followersNina Baym (born 1936) was an American literary critic and literary historian. She is best known as the General Editor of the renowned The Norton Anthology of American Literature, from 1991 - 2018. She was professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for over 40 years, from 1963 to 2004.
Baym was a scholar who asked why so few women were represented in the American literary canon, and subsequently spent her career working to correct that imbalance.
While teaching as English professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1975, Baym was writing a book about Nathaniel Hawthorne when she began to wonder why 19th-Century American literature was so male-dominated.
It was Hawthorne himself who helped pique her curiosity: in 1855, he had famously complained that "a damned mob of scribbling women" was cutting into his sales.
“I wanted to know where these women were,” she recalled in an interview with The New York Times in 1987.
She went searching through library bookshelves and 19th-century newspapers and magazines, looking for information about the absent women writers. She found plenty of novels written by women in the 1800's, and though they varied in quality, she concluded that many deserved more than obscurity.
Baym went on to author and edit of a number of groundbreaking works of American literary history and criticism, beginning with Woman's Fiction (1978), and including Feminism and American Literary History (1992), American Women Writers and the Work of History (1995), and American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences (2004).
Elaine Showalter called Baym's Women Writers of the American West, 1833-1927 (2011), "The first comprehensive guide to women's writing in the old West," and proclaimed it an "immediately standard and classic text."
The book uncovers and describes the western-themed writing in diverse genres of almost 350 American women, most of them unknown today, but many of them successful and influential in their own time.
Baym was active in many professional associations, such as the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association and the American Studies Association, as well as serving as Director of the School of Humanities at the University of Illinois from 1976-1987. She served on panels for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbight Foundation.
Among her numerous literary prizes, fellowship, and honors are the 2000 Jay B. Hubbell Award for lifetime achievement in American literary studies (from the Modern Language Association) and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, and the Mellon Foundation.
Baym was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1936; her father was the eminent mathematician Leo Zippin, and her mother was an English teacher. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. from Radcliffe, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
She died in 1971.
Baym was a scholar who asked why so few women were represented in the American literary canon, and subsequently spent her career working to correct that imbalance.
While teaching as English professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1975, Baym was writing a book about Nathaniel Hawthorne when she began to wonder why 19th-Century American literature was so male-dominated.
It was Hawthorne himself who helped pique her curiosity: in 1855, he had famously complained that "a damned mob of scribbling women" was cutting into his sales.
“I wanted to know where these women were,” she recalled in an interview with The New York Times in 1987.
She went searching through library bookshelves and 19th-century newspapers and magazines, looking for information about the absent women writers. She found plenty of novels written by women in the 1800's, and though they varied in quality, she concluded that many deserved more than obscurity.
Baym went on to author and edit of a number of groundbreaking works of American literary history and criticism, beginning with Woman's Fiction (1978), and including Feminism and American Literary History (1992), American Women Writers and the Work of History (1995), and American Women of Letters and the Nineteenth-Century Sciences (2004).
Elaine Showalter called Baym's Women Writers of the American West, 1833-1927 (2011), "The first comprehensive guide to women's writing in the old West," and proclaimed it an "immediately standard and classic text."
The book uncovers and describes the western-themed writing in diverse genres of almost 350 American women, most of them unknown today, but many of them successful and influential in their own time.
Baym was active in many professional associations, such as the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association and the American Studies Association, as well as serving as Director of the School of Humanities at the University of Illinois from 1976-1987. She served on panels for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbight Foundation.
Among her numerous literary prizes, fellowship, and honors are the 2000 Jay B. Hubbell Award for lifetime achievement in American literary studies (from the Modern Language Association) and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, and the Mellon Foundation.
Baym was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1936; her father was the eminent mathematician Leo Zippin, and her mother was an English teacher. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. from Radcliffe, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
She died in 1971.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
Read
April 3, 2008I actually use the 7th edition now, but they didn't have that one listed. This is the source. More than I ever thought it would be. But you've got to give credit to Norton, they do the anthology thing quite well.
January 25, 2013
This is the second American anthology I had and used since graduate school. Although I prefer the Heath anthology for early American literature, it's still proven to be a handy second source. It might say its a shorter version, but it sure is not very short -about 2000pp. I think Norton's idea of dividing the anthologies into volumes was a good idea, easier to hold and handle.
September 15, 2008
Eh. I have the third edition, hardback, but this was all I could find on here.
February 3, 2024
Emerson, Thorough: man is one with nature/universe; if we're true to ourselves everything will be wonderful
Hawthorne, Melville: Reflect Calvinist thread in American lit-man is horrifying, darkness in souls
These 2 lines of thinking create American thought
Transcendentalism: Starts in Unitarian church (Emerson); all this stuff about the Eucharist, baptism, trinity,....the church has it wrong; he believed Christianity was a set of rules that puts inspirational side of Jesus in a box; Emerson left the church-Jesus understood the greatness in himself and in you (he was one with the force and you can be too).
-Over-soul (called this by Emerson): an ancient idea, in Hinduism (Atman, Brahman)-there's one universal life force; all of us are connected in universal human spirit (Atman-part of nature), so all of life is interconnected. So if you want to know yourself, go out in nature.
-expansive and contractive tendencies: we want to reach out to the over-soul, but also want to stick with things we know and understand; Emerson says we need to find a balance between these two tendencies; spend time in contemplation and in contact with oversoul; we find good by being one with the oversoul; man is basically good
-emphasis on intuition: we achieve connection with oversoul through imagination, intuitive thought
-nature as symbol or living mystery: we need to live the natural life to get in touch with oversoul
-the inner light (Quakers say we all have this light-all have a little bit of God inside of us and need to cultivate that)
-fundamental problem: what if we like torturing puppies? There's no grounds for saying this is wrong.
19th century: :heyday of American utopian colonies; idealist time; represent transcendentalist thought-we're going to have perfect society, dedicated to transcendentalist goals. Ex: Brook Farm (1841-57): personal affinity determines job assignments (do whatever inspires you; if you love plowing, go plow; but nobody wants to do the hard work); opposed to profit-exploitative-but what about if the crops fail-there's nothing set aside to help; it failed
Emerson: Heart and mouthpiece of Transcendentalists
American Scholar, Emerson, 1837:
Self-Reliance, Emerson, 1841: Reflects Emerson's deep mistrust of institutions, society. He promotes radical independence-this is what self-reliance means, not just puritan work ethic, it's not just growing your own carrots; it's being true to yourself spiritually and physically and understanding the spark of divinity inside you; be original; society to him means a set of rules-they are against our original thought; follow your whim.
Thoreau: interested in freedom (however you get it), not solitude; to live deliberately; do we really need land? to live to glorify God? These are just accepted ideas, very un-Emersonian. He works out ideas of Emerson laid out in Self Reliance. What is true, essential for us? Don't be someone's slave. But a simple life is a wise life. Luxuries life are a hinderance. Get rid of expectations of keeping with with neighbors. Life with rhythm of nature.
Puritans: For Bradford and Winthrop, nature is something to be feared. To build a city on the hill, we need to live in community following the law of mercy. Th & Em: to get to good life, we need to be out in wildness of nature--that's where freedom, truth and peace is found. Nature is probably the domain of the prince of darkness.
Hawthorne/Poe: Speculative Fiction (sci fi (Birthmark), fantasy)
Young Goodman Brown: Woods are wild/scary, the devil is there: here, take my snake; He's going into woods to prove he can stand up to devil; he's bringing his own understanding derived from Calvinist heritage; he's not necessarily saying anything for or against Calvinism; narration is ambiguous (don't really know for sure what's real, what's happening); he's highlighting the depravity of everyone's souls; as holy as we seem, we're all sinners; or: to someone consumed by sin, everything looks evil, like Goodman Brown; two interpretations are possible. A story about doubt and sin. Unlike Emerson who believes in communing with glory of nature. Hawthorne says we're NOT basically good. Same ideas in Ethan Brown and Birthmark. Ethan Brown finds unforgivable sin is his heart, which proves his lack of election. The sin is himself. He's not one of the elected. Birthmark: Georgiana's perfect except for birthmark. Represents a flew which they try to remove, but it's her one connection to the world/people; that makes her like others, so when they try to remove it, she dies. He's trying to create life. So Elmer thinks if he's in touch with nature, he can find life. Black Veil: covers secret sin, and we all have this; it separates us from each other; what makes us human is our brokenness. But we pretend that we're not broken.
Poe: Started detective novel genre; pioneer of realism
Realism: characters not seeing reality for what it is, living for an ideal (Editha, The Beast in the Jungle-he's waiting for something big to happen rather than loving what's right before him). In realism, there's less symbolism (i.e. Moby Dick) , but motifs (runs through the text/images After civil war, people have lost much of their idealism/cynical.
Regionalism: Industrial Revolution/mass migration (people moving around for better economics opportunities cuz life changing/modernizing, esp. the south), life is changing, more uniformity. Regionalists attempt to capture and document certain places/times.
Naturalism: no elements of the supernatural; it's pessimistic, materialistic (only thing that counts is the material world), determinism; man is just an animal that we can study in his surroundings like we study other animals; we are creatures shaped by nature
Hawthorne, Melville: Reflect Calvinist thread in American lit-man is horrifying, darkness in souls
These 2 lines of thinking create American thought
Transcendentalism: Starts in Unitarian church (Emerson); all this stuff about the Eucharist, baptism, trinity,....the church has it wrong; he believed Christianity was a set of rules that puts inspirational side of Jesus in a box; Emerson left the church-Jesus understood the greatness in himself and in you (he was one with the force and you can be too).
-Over-soul (called this by Emerson): an ancient idea, in Hinduism (Atman, Brahman)-there's one universal life force; all of us are connected in universal human spirit (Atman-part of nature), so all of life is interconnected. So if you want to know yourself, go out in nature.
-expansive and contractive tendencies: we want to reach out to the over-soul, but also want to stick with things we know and understand; Emerson says we need to find a balance between these two tendencies; spend time in contemplation and in contact with oversoul; we find good by being one with the oversoul; man is basically good
-emphasis on intuition: we achieve connection with oversoul through imagination, intuitive thought
-nature as symbol or living mystery: we need to live the natural life to get in touch with oversoul
-the inner light (Quakers say we all have this light-all have a little bit of God inside of us and need to cultivate that)
-fundamental problem: what if we like torturing puppies? There's no grounds for saying this is wrong.
19th century: :heyday of American utopian colonies; idealist time; represent transcendentalist thought-we're going to have perfect society, dedicated to transcendentalist goals. Ex: Brook Farm (1841-57): personal affinity determines job assignments (do whatever inspires you; if you love plowing, go plow; but nobody wants to do the hard work); opposed to profit-exploitative-but what about if the crops fail-there's nothing set aside to help; it failed
Emerson: Heart and mouthpiece of Transcendentalists
American Scholar, Emerson, 1837:
Self-Reliance, Emerson, 1841: Reflects Emerson's deep mistrust of institutions, society. He promotes radical independence-this is what self-reliance means, not just puritan work ethic, it's not just growing your own carrots; it's being true to yourself spiritually and physically and understanding the spark of divinity inside you; be original; society to him means a set of rules-they are against our original thought; follow your whim.
Thoreau: interested in freedom (however you get it), not solitude; to live deliberately; do we really need land? to live to glorify God? These are just accepted ideas, very un-Emersonian. He works out ideas of Emerson laid out in Self Reliance. What is true, essential for us? Don't be someone's slave. But a simple life is a wise life. Luxuries life are a hinderance. Get rid of expectations of keeping with with neighbors. Life with rhythm of nature.
Puritans: For Bradford and Winthrop, nature is something to be feared. To build a city on the hill, we need to live in community following the law of mercy. Th & Em: to get to good life, we need to be out in wildness of nature--that's where freedom, truth and peace is found. Nature is probably the domain of the prince of darkness.
Hawthorne/Poe: Speculative Fiction (sci fi (Birthmark), fantasy)
Young Goodman Brown: Woods are wild/scary, the devil is there: here, take my snake; He's going into woods to prove he can stand up to devil; he's bringing his own understanding derived from Calvinist heritage; he's not necessarily saying anything for or against Calvinism; narration is ambiguous (don't really know for sure what's real, what's happening); he's highlighting the depravity of everyone's souls; as holy as we seem, we're all sinners; or: to someone consumed by sin, everything looks evil, like Goodman Brown; two interpretations are possible. A story about doubt and sin. Unlike Emerson who believes in communing with glory of nature. Hawthorne says we're NOT basically good. Same ideas in Ethan Brown and Birthmark. Ethan Brown finds unforgivable sin is his heart, which proves his lack of election. The sin is himself. He's not one of the elected. Birthmark: Georgiana's perfect except for birthmark. Represents a flew which they try to remove, but it's her one connection to the world/people; that makes her like others, so when they try to remove it, she dies. He's trying to create life. So Elmer thinks if he's in touch with nature, he can find life. Black Veil: covers secret sin, and we all have this; it separates us from each other; what makes us human is our brokenness. But we pretend that we're not broken.
Poe: Started detective novel genre; pioneer of realism
Realism: characters not seeing reality for what it is, living for an ideal (Editha, The Beast in the Jungle-he's waiting for something big to happen rather than loving what's right before him). In realism, there's less symbolism (i.e. Moby Dick) , but motifs (runs through the text/images After civil war, people have lost much of their idealism/cynical.
Regionalism: Industrial Revolution/mass migration (people moving around for better economics opportunities cuz life changing/modernizing, esp. the south), life is changing, more uniformity. Regionalists attempt to capture and document certain places/times.
Naturalism: no elements of the supernatural; it's pessimistic, materialistic (only thing that counts is the material world), determinism; man is just an animal that we can study in his surroundings like we study other animals; we are creatures shaped by nature
December 5, 2015
1/17-1/19 Kate Chopin: The Storm
1/19-1/21 Charles W Chesnutt: The Wife of His Youth
1/22-1/24 Susan Glaspell: Trifles
1/24-1/26 Claude McKay: The Harlem Dancer, Harlem Shadows, If We Must Die, Africa, America
1/26-1/28 Hilda Doolittle: Mid-day, Oread, Leda, Fragment, Helen
1/28-1/31 F Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams
1/31-2/2 Zora Neale Hurston: How It Feels to Be Colored Me
2/2-2/4 Ernest Hemingway: The Snows of Kilimanjaro
2/9-2/11 John Steinbeck: The Leader of the People
2/11-2/14 Richard Wright: The Man Who Was Almost a Man
2/14-2/16 Ralph Ellison: Battle Royal from Invisible Man
2/16-2/18 Allen Ginsberg: Howl and A Supermarket in California
2/19-2/21 John Cheever: The Swimmer
2/23-2/25 Theodore Roethke: Cuttings, Cuttings (later), My Papa's Waltz, Elegy for Jane, I Knew a Woman
2/25-2/28 Robert Hayden: Middle Passage, Homage to the Empress of the Blues, Those Winter Sundays
3/1-3/2 Flanner O'Connor: Good Country People
3/2-3/4 Anne Sexton: The Starry Night, Sylvia's Death, Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman
3/4-3/14 Spring Break
3/8-3/14 John Updike: Separating
3/14-3/16 Audrey Lorde: Coal, The Woman Thing, Harriet
3/16-3/18 N. Scott Momaday: The Way to Rainy Mountain (gone for Oriana)
3/18-3/21 Lucille Clifton: miss rosie, homage to my hips, wild blessings, wishes for sons, oh antic god (not discussed: Carolivia Herron visit)
3/21-3/23 Raymond Carver: Cathedral
3/28-3/30 Gloria Anzaldua: How to Tame a Wild Tongue
3/30-4/1 Billy Collins: Forgetting, I Chop Some Parsley..., The Night House
4/4-4/6 Michael S. Harper: Dear John, Dear Coltrane, American History, Martin's Blues
4/6-4/8 Alice Walker: Everyday Use
4/8-4/11 Leslie Marmon Silko: Lullaby
4/11-4/13 Maxine Hong Kingston: No Name Woman
4/13-4/15 Rita Dove: Parsley, Adolescence--I, Adolescence--II, Rosa, Fox Trot Fridays
4/15-4/18 Li-Young Lee: Persimmons, Eating Alone, Eating Together, This Room and Everything in It
4/18-4/20 Cathy Song: The White Porch, Lost Sister, Heaven
4/20-4/25 Jhumpa Lahiri: Sexy
1/19-1/21 Charles W Chesnutt: The Wife of His Youth
1/22-1/24 Susan Glaspell: Trifles
1/24-1/26 Claude McKay: The Harlem Dancer, Harlem Shadows, If We Must Die, Africa, America
1/26-1/28 Hilda Doolittle: Mid-day, Oread, Leda, Fragment, Helen
1/28-1/31 F Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams
1/31-2/2 Zora Neale Hurston: How It Feels to Be Colored Me
2/2-2/4 Ernest Hemingway: The Snows of Kilimanjaro
2/9-2/11 John Steinbeck: The Leader of the People
2/11-2/14 Richard Wright: The Man Who Was Almost a Man
2/14-2/16 Ralph Ellison: Battle Royal from Invisible Man
2/16-2/18 Allen Ginsberg: Howl and A Supermarket in California
2/19-2/21 John Cheever: The Swimmer
2/23-2/25 Theodore Roethke: Cuttings, Cuttings (later), My Papa's Waltz, Elegy for Jane, I Knew a Woman
2/25-2/28 Robert Hayden: Middle Passage, Homage to the Empress of the Blues, Those Winter Sundays
3/1-3/2 Flanner O'Connor: Good Country People
3/2-3/4 Anne Sexton: The Starry Night, Sylvia's Death, Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman
3/4-3/14 Spring Break
3/8-3/14 John Updike: Separating
3/14-3/16 Audrey Lorde: Coal, The Woman Thing, Harriet
3/16-3/18 N. Scott Momaday: The Way to Rainy Mountain (gone for Oriana)
3/18-3/21 Lucille Clifton: miss rosie, homage to my hips, wild blessings, wishes for sons, oh antic god (not discussed: Carolivia Herron visit)
3/21-3/23 Raymond Carver: Cathedral
3/28-3/30 Gloria Anzaldua: How to Tame a Wild Tongue
3/30-4/1 Billy Collins: Forgetting, I Chop Some Parsley..., The Night House
4/4-4/6 Michael S. Harper: Dear John, Dear Coltrane, American History, Martin's Blues
4/6-4/8 Alice Walker: Everyday Use
4/8-4/11 Leslie Marmon Silko: Lullaby
4/11-4/13 Maxine Hong Kingston: No Name Woman
4/13-4/15 Rita Dove: Parsley, Adolescence--I, Adolescence--II, Rosa, Fox Trot Fridays
4/15-4/18 Li-Young Lee: Persimmons, Eating Alone, Eating Together, This Room and Everything in It
4/18-4/20 Cathy Song: The White Porch, Lost Sister, Heaven
4/20-4/25 Jhumpa Lahiri: Sexy
February 18, 2009
This anthology is excellent, despite the inherent handicap that all anthologies suffer from. The selection (which is just that--a selection) provides a nice overview of American literature from the Puritans who first settled the colonies to contemporary authors. This anthology is comparatively easy to read, and features excellent introductions to each author that provide helpful and interesting historical background/context. Well-chosen excerpts give the reader a sampling that leaves them with an appetite for more.
December 3, 2020
I was given this edition by a family member who found it discarded elsewhere. Though I didn't realize at the time it was published in the 80's (and therefore newer editions probably include more modern authors), this anthology introduced me to the great works of American writers, and inspired me throughout high school. I still think it's an excellent collection of written work from America's history, and recommend it to anyone who loves literature. It cuts off around the "Beat Generation" of poetry.
May 9, 2017
Read this for my Survey of American Literature I class, useful information in this book, learn stuff while reading this book. This book was required for the English I had taken at the community college.
January 26, 2008
actually have 3rd edition (shorter)
March 26, 2008
Great compilation! This anthology made my junior year of English very enjoyable!
March 26, 2008
Great!!!!
July 22, 2008
Good edition. I liked the stories that were included and it was quite interesting. The side notes helped and explained things well.
Currently reading
June 3, 2010Always reading.
January 21, 2009
I have the second edition, but it's awesome.
June 1, 2011
This anthology contains many "required reading" texts for English majors in the U.S.
August 3, 2011
American literature does leave something to be desired, but the editors could have done a better job selecting pieces to include in this "essential" edition.
December 29, 2011
I didn't love this as much as English Lit, but still some amazing docs and reads.
May 1, 2013
I have read most of it.
October 19, 2012
This is one of the best american lit anthologies
October 20, 2014
Read The Romantics through to Robert Frost. Loved.
April 29, 2014
This is my favorite out of the four anthologies I own. I am in love with the candid, yet powerful stories of American literature and this book is full of them. A treasure in our home.
February 17, 2015
I read this for American Literature. This was another very large book that was awkward and heavy, but it was useful in the variety of works.
January 21, 2015
Using this to write essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner.
June 25, 2015
I had to read sections from this for an American Lit class my sophomore year. A great survey of the American literary tradition.
September 9, 2019
I've hung on to this book since college. A classic anthology collection that won't go out of style anytime soon.
October 8, 2016
I read this for a class in college, but it has so many of the great pieces by great writers.
December 17, 2016
Well-organized survey of American Literature
November 8, 2017
All I have to say about this is... I AM DONE! I DID IT!
November 17, 2017
Any text book, even one of literature, is only as good as the teacher who guides you through it. With this one, I had a great teacher.
December 2, 2017
Great anthology.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews