The Norton Anthology of World Literature

The Norton Anthology of World Literature – Martin Puchner et al. (Eds.) – 2012

The information/advertisement on the W.W. Norton website convinced me. I figured, I might as well get the full version (as opposed to the “shorter” edition) that comes in two packages of 3 volumes each. These six books in total are a delight and constant cause for amazement. Volume A starts with the beginning of time (almost). Going back to earliest recorded stories and myths, volume after volume you discover wonders of the earth. It includes the Epic of Gilgamesh (which is said to go as far back as 1900 BC), and Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, and Early Chinese literature, and, quite literally, everything. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Preface opened with the travels of Evliya Çelebi, whose stories I was familiar with. If you are studying or teaching world literatures, this collection is very useful. If you are thinking of getting this for your own personal curiosity and enrichment, you will not regret it. After all there is a world outside of what we know and this anthology takes us to the unknown in time and space.

I encourage everyone to read the improvements made to the third edition on the Norton website:

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/webad.aspx?id=23645

These are the two packages of the “full” third edition:

Package 1: Volumes A, B, and C

Package 2: Volumes D, E, and F 

There is also a shorter, abridged version of the third edition that comes in two volumes.  Volume 1 and volume 2 of the shorter version are:

The two above can be bought together in a set: 

Since the full edition can also be purchased separately (i.e. the individual books of A, B, C, D, E and F, as opposed to two packages of 3), it gets pretty confusing. There are also previous editions (I would ignore them and stick to the third edition) as well as many other Norton Anthologies (American Literature, Poetry etc.), so it is best to pay close attention to what you are ordering. I hope the above links will be helpful. They are “localized” amazon links, in other words, they take you to your own amazon, the one that is nearest to you (US, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany or Netherlands).