Highlights
14 Complete Longer Works
For instructors concerned about the cost of individual works, the Third Edition continues to provide “a course in a book” and, as such, an unbeatable value to students. Among the 14 complete longer works are Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and 5 new selections Margaret Edson’s Wit, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Story,” and Marie de France’s “Bisclavret” and “Yönec,” in Dorothy Gilbert’s fresh verse translations.
A Global Perspective
Thirty new authors dramatically extend and deepen the coverage of English-language women writers worldwide, from the aboriginal Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) to the Indian American fiction writer Jhumpa Lahiri to the British writer of lesbian fiction Jeanette Winterson, among dozens of others. Likewise, the representation of American writers of diverse racial, ethnic, and regional origins—new writers include Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Joy Harjo, and Gish Jen—has been greatly strengthened. This geographic diversity is matched by a greater variety of genres, among them science fiction, experimental poetry, and literary criticism.
Strengthened Classic Writers
The Third Edition has expanded and reconfigured representation of such central figures as Anne Bradstreet, Frances Burney, Emily Dickinson (whose poems are now those of the Franklin edition), Dorothy Wordsworth, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Frances E. W. Harper, Louisa May Alcott, Jean Rhys, Grace Paley, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nadine Gordimer, Adrienne Rich, and Rita Dove. In many cases, selections have been tailored to more directly “speak to each other” on key issues such as education, economics, race relations, and the writing life, about which women have spoken powerfully for centuries.
Updated Apparatus; A More Readable Page; New Endpaper Maps
The period introductions, headnotes, annotations, and bibliographies have been updated and fine-tuned. A new, bolder typeface and heavier paper stock make for a more readable page. New endpaper maps highlighting places of importance to North American Women Writers, Women Writers of the British Isles, and Women Writers in English Worldwide provide useful references for students.
Flexible New Format
Now in two paperback volumes, the Third Edition can serve a variety of courses organized by period or topic, at levels from introductory to advanced. Instructors will appreciate the added flexibility, while students will welcome the new portability.
Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s newest collaboration, Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader, is the first collection to trace the historical evolution of feminist writing about literature in English from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. With selections by more than 100 writers and scholars, the reader is an ideal companion for literature surveys where critical and theoretical texts are featured and is a rich, flexible core text for advanced courses in feminist theory and criticism.
Copyright © 2006, W. W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.
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