A Norton Critical Edition

Like many of Hardy’s novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge is set in the fictional county of Wessex in the mid 1800s. It begins with Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser, drunk on rum, auctioning off his wife and baby daughter at a village fair. The next day, overcome with remorse, Henchard resolves to turn his life around. When we meet Henchard eighteen years later, temperance and hard work have made him wealthy and respectable. However, he cannot escape his past. His secret guilt, his pride, and his impulsive temper all serve to sabotage his good name. The Mayor of Casterbridge was published in 1886, first as a magazine serial and then later that year as a book. It is perhaps most noteworthy for the psychological portrait of Michael Henchard, a tragic character who remains sympathetic while simultaneously being deeply flawed. Typical of other Hardy novels, it also vividly depicts life in the rural countryside at that time.

Contains three versions of William Wordsworth's poem about "the growth of a poet's mind," featuring the annotated texts of the 1805 and 1850 editions on parallel pages, and including the 1799 two-part version of the poem.

Presents authoritative texts of six Restoration and 18th century English comedies, accompanied by historical background and critical essays from past and present.

Presents a selection of writings by sixteenth-century Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus, including "The Praise of Folly," an ironic speech by the pagan goddess Folly in praise of herself, and includes critical essays.

Examines the religious and political evolution of Ethiopia that led to the foundation of the Christian dynastic rule now governing the country.

A collection of writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, including sermons, poems, and journal excerpts, as well as a portion of his contributions to "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," with critical interpretations, and essays that examine the context in which Emerson wrote, and his critical reception.

Presents eight twentieth-century plays from seven African countries, along with explanatory notes and over thirty background writings and works of criticism.

"Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and who lived in England during the twelfth century. Prominent among the earliest poets writing in the French vernacular, Marie de France helped shape the style and genres of later medieval poetry. This Norton Critical Edition includes all of Marie's lais (short narrative verse poems); selected fables; and a generous excerpt from Saint Patrick's Purgatory, a long poem based on a well-known medieval legend. Each text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations. For comparative reading, two lais, "Bisclavret" and "Yonec," are accompanied by Marie's facing-page originals. "Contexts" is thematically organized to provide readers with a clear sense of Marie's Inspirations. Topics include "The Supernatural," "Love and Romance," "Medical Traditions," "Fable Sources and Analogues: Similar Themes," and "Purgatory and the Afterlife." Ovid, St. Augustine, King Cnut, Chaucer, Andreas Capellanus, Boccaccio, Aristotle, and Bede are among the authors included. From the wealth of scholarly work published on Marie de France, Dorothy Gilbert has chosen eight essays that address issues of history and authorship as well as major themes in the lais, fables, and Saint Patrick's Purgatory. The contributions are Thomas Warton, Abbe Gervais de la Rue, Joseph Bedier, Leo Spitzer, R. Howard Bloch, E. A. Francis, Jill Mann, and Jacques LeGoff" --

This is a collection of short stories and poems written about the lives of African Americans in the 1920s.

When Newton was not yet twenty-five years old, he formulated calculus, hit upon the idea of gravity, and discovered that white light was made up of all the colors of the spectrum. By 1678, Newton designed a telescope to study the movement of the planets and published Principia, a milestone in the history of science, which set forth his famous laws of motion and universal gravitation. Newton's long-time research on calculus, finally made public in 1704, triggered a heated controversy as European scientists accused him of plagiarizing the work of the German scientist Gottfried Leibniz. In this third volume in the acclaimed Ackroyd's Brief Lives series, bestselling author Peter Ackroyd provides an engaging portrait of Isaac Newton, illuminating what we think we know about him and describing his seminal contributions to science and mathematics. A man of wide and eclectic interests, Newton blurred the borders between natural philosophy and speculation: he was as passionate about astrology as astronomy and dabbled in alchemy, while his religious faith was never undermined by his determination to interpret a modern universe as a mathematical universe. By brining vividly to life a somewhat puritanical man whose desire to experiment and explore bordered on the obsessive, Peter Ackroyd demonstrates the unique brilliance of Newton's perceptions, which changed our understanding of the world.From the Hardcover edition.

"This Norton Critical Edition is the first book to include Thomas Jefferson's writings and writings about him - from his era and ours. The editor, Wayne Franklin, seeks to present readers with a full understanding of Jefferson's importance to the intellectual development of the United States, particularly in political theory and scientific learning; of Jefferson's role in the expansion of the territory and sovereignty of the United States; and of Jefferson's controversial relation to slavery and race as key issues in American history." "Jefferson's most important published texts are included - A Summary View of the Rights of British America, the Declaration of Independence, and Notes on the State of Virginia - along with An Appendix to the Notes on Virginia Relative to the Murder of Logan's Family and his Message to Congress on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In addition, more than one hundred of Jefferson's letters (1760-1826) have been selected from his rich body of correspondence, allowing readers to see Jefferson as a person as well as a public figure. All texts are accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations."--Jacket.

Presents a comprehensive analysis of the works of fourteenth-century English author, Julian of Norwich designed for undergraduate students, and contains authoritative texts and critical essays.

The major poetic and prose works of Blake are accompanied by his illuminations and selected criticism. In addition to a broad selection of the poems, the volume includes over 100 images (16 in color), emphasizing the centrality of pictorial representations to Blake"s verse. Biographical context is provided through dozens of excerpts from Blake"s notebook, letters, marginalia, and other writings. 'Criticism' offers twenty wide-ranging commentaries by writers from Blake"s contemporaries to present-day critics, among them Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Northrop Frye, Allen Ginsberg, Morris Eaves, Harold Bloom, Alicia Ostriker, John Mee, Saree Makdisi, and Julia Wright. A section on Textual Technicalities, a Chronology of Blake"s life and work, a Selected Bibliography, and an Index of Titles and First Lines are also included.

"This Norton Critical Edition includes thirty-five of Katherine Mansfield's short stories. With the exception of the first four stories, all were written within a period of ten years. These stories, and the letters following, reflect the urgency of a writer who knew her time was limited (Mansfield died of tuberculosis in 1923). With few exceptions, the texts of the stories reprinted here are the versions that Mansfield herself revised or selected. Vincent O'Sullivan provides detailed explanatory annotations for each story." "Katherine Mansfield wrote many letters, but seldom about the craft of writing or about how she viewed her own work. The twenty excerpts from her correspondence reprinted here address precisely these concerns, providing readers with an understanding of Mansfield's creative process." "The New York Times Book Review recently named Katherine Mansfield "the most emblematic woman writer of her time." The eighteen critical essays judiciously selected by the editor collectively suggest the changing emphases in how we read and perceive one of the twentieth century's most important fiction writers. Contributors include fellow writers Rebecca West, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Anne Porter, V. S. Pritchett, Elizabeth Bowen, and Frank O'Connor and biographers Angela Smith and Claire Tomalin, among others." "A Selected Bibliography is also included. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.

Coleridge combined the genius of a poet with the mind of a philosophical critic. His writings are wide-ranging in form and content, and vast in number. This eagerly awaited Norton Critical Edition is the most comprehensive and accessible student edition available and has been prepared to meet the needs of both students and scholars. The editors present Coleridge's writing in its historical context to indicate the public resonance of his work. The poetry selections highlight the development of his poetic canon, the construction of his volumes of poetry, and the evolution of his poetic style. The editors have arranged the poems as they first appeared in collections under Coleridge's name. The prose writings represent Coleridge's public and private voices and include selections from all the major prose published during his lifetime as well as from his notebooks, letters, and marginalia. Supporting apparatus includes detailed headnotes, authorial and editorial annotations, a biographical register, a glossary, and an index of poems and first lines. "Criticism" collects twenty assessments of Coleridge's poetry and prose by nineteenth- and twentieth-century British and American authors, including William Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Margaret Fuller, Robert Penn Warren, M.H. Abrams, Frances Ferguson, Karen Swann, Nicholas Roe, and Jerome McGann.

Celebrated novella of a middle-aged German writer℗s tormented passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, and its tragic consequences. Powerful evocation of the mysterious forces of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, and the isolation of the artist in 20th-century life. This edition provides an excellent new translation and extensive commentary on many facets of the story.

xxxix, 404 pages ; 22 cm

Mrs Warren's profession, [Pygmalion]( Man and superman, Major Barbara

Oedipus Rex chronicles the story of Oedipus, a man that becomes the king of Thebes and was always destined from birth to murder his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. The play is an example of a classic tragedy, noticeably containing an emphasis on how Oedipus's own faults contribute to the tragic hero's downfall, as opposed to having fate be the sole cause. Over the centuries, Oedipus Rex has come to be regarded by many as the Greek tragedy par excellence.

First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Irene Redfield, the novel's protagonist, is a woman with an enviable life. She and her husband, Brian, a prominent physician, share a comfortable Harlem town house with their sons. Her work arranging charity balls that gather Harlem's elite creates a sense of purpose and respectability for Irene. But her hold on this world begins to slip the day she encounters Clare Kendry, a childhood friend with whom she had lost touch. Clare—light-skinned, beautiful, and charming—tells Irene how, after her father's death, she left behind the black neighborhood of her adolescence and began passing for white, hiding her true identity from everyone, including her racist husband. As Clare begins inserting herself into Irene's life, Irene is thrown into a panic, terrified of the consequences of Clare's dangerous behavior. And when Clare witnesses the vibrancy and energy of the community she left behind, her burning desire to come back threatens to shatter her careful deception.

Attempts to present a comprehensive view of Byron's work and life by including selections from his letters, a chronology of his life, critical essays, and a broad selection of his poetry.

In addition to the texts of 'Walden' and 'Civil Disobedience', this revised and expanded 'Norton Critical Edition' reprints the increasingly important works 'Slavery in Massachusetts', 'Walking' and 'Wild Apples'. All texts are accompanied by annotations.

"Hannah Webster Foster's two major Early American works with a wealth of primary materials are now available in a Norton Critical Edition. Published anonymously in 1797, Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette grabbed American interest with its ripped-from-the-headlines story of sex and scandal. A steady best seller for decades, the seduction novel was passed down through generations; indeed, its heroine became better known than the book's author. A year later, Foster's lesser-known follow-up, The Boarding School, provided an equally compelling portrait of women at the turn of the nineteenth century in the same epistolary form. Both novels can now be read in conversation with each other in this new Norton Critical Edition based on the respective first edition texts; the author's original spelling, punctuation, and usage are retained while obvious printer's errors are corrected. The texts are joined with a detailed introduction to Foster's legacy and Elizabeth Whitman's life along with explanatory annotations and a note on the text. "Sources and Contexts" unearths a wealth of original material about the environment the works were produced in and the real-life people who inspired them. The three sections, "On Coquetry," "The Life and Death of Elizabeth Whitman," and "The Nineteenth-Century Legacy," include new and corrected transcriptions of Whitman's letters to Ruth and Joel Barlow, an inventory of items found at Whitman's room at her death, popular representations of Elizabeth Whitman, and unauthorized sequels to The Coquette. Seven illustrations, including three of Eliza Wharton, are included to enrich the reading experience. "Criticism" brings together nine diverse contemporary interpretations. Contributors include Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Claire C. Pettengill, Julia A. Stern, Gillian Brown, Jeffrey H. Richards, and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, among others. Chronologies of the lives of Hannah Webster Foster and Elizabeth Whitman are included along with a Selected Bibliography."--Publisher's website.

Lincoln's Selected Writings includes a rich selection of his public and private letters, speeches, eulogies, proposals, debate transcriptions, addresses (including the First and Second Inaugurals), and more. The texts are accompanied by explanatory annotations, a detailed preface, a note on the texts, and a list of abbreviations. Lincoln's writings are followed by contemporary responses to him in poems, songs, and articles; representations of Lincoln in modern imaginative and nonfiction writing; and selections from recent cross-disciplinary studies of Lincoln-including discussions of his literary techniques and oratorical style as well as examinations of his political evolution in new cultural and social contexts. Among the many contributors are Horace Greeley, Jesse Hutchinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Karl Marx, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Victor Hugo, and Walt Whitman. "Modern Views" presents sixteen major interpretations of Lincoln's life, work, and legacy carefully chosen to promote discussion.