The Last Word On A Norton Anthology

Distinguished University Professor Robert Levine is the general editor of the 2017 edition of the The Norton Anthology of American Literature.

By Liam Farrell, Terp magazine.

Everyone remembers reading one of them. Maybe it was in high school or in college, maybe for a class on British literature or American writers. The individual circumstances and edition may differ, but the name always starts the same: the Norton Anthology.

And while it feels like it has and always will be there, a dedicated group of people, including UMD English Professor Robert Levine, works to make sure those books actually land on shelves.

The general editor of “The Norton Anthology of American Literature,” Levine will soon begin compiling its ninth edition, scheduled for publication in 2017. The anthology is revised every five years, and Norton says more than 2.5 million students have read it in the last three decades.

With that ubiquity, Levine is aware that his choices of short stories, book excerpts, letters, speeches and diary entries will literally and figuratively carry a lot of weight.

“You know whatever work you are doing is going to be read by many people,” he says.

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