History
Published in 1962, the first edition of The Norton Anthology was based on an English literature survey course Abrams and fellow editor David Daiches taught at Cornell University. The anthology underwent periodic revisions every few years. The fifth edition in 1986 included the addition of the full texts of Joyce's “The Dead” and Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The sixth edition, published in 1993, included Nadine Gordimer and Fleur Adcock. The Seventh edition added Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and Chinua Achebe's novel Things 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." Another addition has been an increase in women writers: "The new edition, Greenblatt said, includes 68 women writers, more than eight times as many as in the first edition."
Read more about this topic: The Norton Anthology Of English Literature
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