Rating: 
Summary: New Edition is Overpriced and Unnecessary
Review: I'm a university professor, and I've used the Norton anthologies in my surveys of English literature for years. But it's absurd that every few years, a new edition is brought out (with little or no substantive changes), forcing students to buy a new text rather than the used texts that are widely (and cheaply) available. A further absurdity is that the hardcover version of the 7th edition is only two dollars more than the paper. Anyone interested in buying the Norton anthologies for reading pleasure (rather than as a required text) would be just as well suited by a used copy of either the fifth or sixth editions.
Rating:
Summary: thin paper makes this unreadable
Review: I'm an English professor who teaches British Literature survey courses, and I have had it with Norton. The pages are so thin and the type so dark that you are always reading the type on your page AND the type that is bleeding through from the other side of the page. What good are all the introductions, and footnotes, if you can't read them without getting a headache??????
Is it because they know they have the only anthology covering all of British Literature that they no longer care about publishing a quality product?
Of course one source of the problem is the "politically correct" English professors who care more about pushing a political agenda than they do about literature. And so we get Aphra Behn and Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wroth and on and on in a so-called "Major Authors" edition.
What an absurdity! At least when Norton's anthology of American literature had the same thin-paper problem (and was full of typos) I had other options. Now that Norton has messed up its British anthology, I will probably have students buy a dozen individual books. Just about anything beats this monstrosity.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books I've ever owned
Review: If books can lead us to whole new worlds, the NAEL leads us to a whole new universe. This is a book that, just as it contents do, truly transcends time. There is so much education, information, and beauty in this book, that it is not a expenditure as much as it is an investment. This is a book that can fit into any mood you may have on a day to day basis. From the tragic action of Beowulf to the sentiment of Milton to the comedy of Chaucer. This is a book for a lifetime, not a semester. Pundits who criticize NAEL for it's "perceived" over coverage of poetry, are being short-sighted and unappreciative. One should not question the quantity of literature, but the quality. Those same people would probably criticize Dickens and Steinbeck for being too "wordy". This book is a must-have for anyone with the smallest amount of passion for English Literature!
Rating: 
Summary: A great reference book for the literature enthusiast
Review: If you like classical English literature, you'll love this collection of poetry, fictional prose, and nonfictional prose all scribed by authors from that grand old island we call Great Britain. I used it as a text book, but I can see why people would want it on their shelves to take out and occasionally peruse. It's great for those times when you feel as though you've had enough of modern authors and reruns of Hill Street Blues. It's also a great conversation piece. I can imagine a couple inviting their close friends over and, having nothing else about which they may talk, mentioning the gigantic collection of literature this couple owns and currently displays proudly on their coffee table. My views are that such a book shouldn't go unnoticed by passers-by in the local bookstore. It's great to have this in your collection of masterpiece literature. When you run out of sappy romance novels, pick this up and start from "Beowulf" and finish with a little Joseph Conrad. You'll finish it in no time. So, give me a call in my corner of Louisiana when you're done... if you're still alive.
Rating:
Summary: Needs better editing
Review: It seems to me that Norton can put together the best overview anthology around, but they can't bear to let anything go. All the major authors of the period are covered, but only one question: was the entirety of Paradise Lost really needed, and if it was, couldn't Beggar's Opera have been held off. All the right materials are there, but what is needed is some judicious editing.
Rating:
Summary: Stalwart
Review: Most of the reviews submitted thus far tend to criticize the canon in general, as opposed to the editorial apparatus or the actual works contained within this tome. I for one am delighted with this book, and have found no logical substitute for it as of yet. Even when looking into the "Longman Anthology of British Literature" I found it considerably lacking. To deny the whole of "Paradise Lost" is inane (and yes, to include the work completely is neccessary if one is to truly appeciate it; without it the entire work, you might as well not include any of it at all) and to only offer one Shakesperean play is akin more to a meal, than a banquet (if I may sardonically quote their marketing ploy on the back of the Longman) - truly, the Norton is THE book for any English Literature survey course.
Rating: 
Summary: Should this book exist?
Review: My main problem with this edition is some works are hopelessly butchered. Some examples: Gulliver's Travels had some of it's most hilarious (and offensive) passages omitted. The Canterbury Tales section, in my opinion, was badly lacking *yes I know how huge is it*. Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella Sonnets would have sonnets 34,37, 39... why not humor us and add the few missing lines and complete it? I agree that the book is a very ambitious attempt to outline a lot, in which it arguable succeeds. However, I don't think any one who has read it would dispute that it does succeed in bastardizing many. Also, I find this anthology to be particularly susceptible to current and fashionable political agendas. By all means the books needs, say Marie de France, but if you approach this collection with an egalitarian outlook and start adding writers based almost entirely on their gender (or race) it will only discredit it. Why did the editors chose the omissions they did? To answer that I would need to delve deeply into the complex psyche of a literary scholar. So now for your enjoyment and enlightenment. I offer you an unprecedented and brilliant evaluation of a common(not universal) Literature Professor. Enter the Young Professor... You studied literature at a prestigious, preferably ivy league school (on someone else's wallet) with the solitary and admirable goal to someday create great Literature. However, after countless setbacks suffered at the hands of idolized, yet bitterly jealous professors, you learn the system, calm your ambitions and conform. And then one day, you realize you're a sour failure of an associate professor. But the noble dream is still not dead, so you toil late nights at the keyboard trying to produce your dream. Even with your finished work, you are too terrified of being discredited and mocked by your peers, also you come to the realization that your work will never compete with those you criticize and decide such a station is beneath you. Therefore, you change your direction. Now your sole purpose is to A) foist your perceived valuable mastery and worth B) disgrace yourself and the great writers of the western world by "editing", further ensuring fewer people are attracted to your Bastion of literary status. So you now spend your days writing beauracracies of context, style and format as a MLA fascist. Also in your freetime you enjoy belittling and crushing creativity displayed by potential usurpers and exposers with the following grading system. Ground breaking, insightful, dangerously original... with a misused semi-colon - C...- Reassuring regurgitation of my own recycled (yet probably asinine) ideas, conforming to all trivial literary conventions that necessitate my existence - ... B+ And there you have it! Academian mind explained. These editors, who are so confident that they are more knowledgeable in the author's intent, than oh-say, The Author! This is precisely the reason why editors of don't feel the slightest remorse at their selections and omissions, their knowledge truly is supreme. So get this book if you are forced to (like me), but buy a used, old edition for no reason other than to anger whiny professors. Then, see what you like and go find a version that has not been butchered by over zealous literary parasites. It really isn't that bad, but many of the works are dissected by people who should know enough not to do just that . I give it a a solid C... or on second thought, a C-, 72%.
Rating:
Summary: Panders to the Zietgeist
Review: Ninety-nine percent of the people who buy this book will have no choice; it will be the required text for an undergraduate survey of British literature. They should know that while this is in many respects a fine book, it is misleading. I will offer a couple of examples based on my own specialization, 19th century literature. The two volumes offer 15 pages on Sir Walter Scott, that is, 1/400th of the whole anthology, or 1/200th of the second volume. Yet Scott is, arguably, the most influential writer in English for the 19th century. No Scott - - no historical novel - - no War and Peace. The volume's ill-treatment of Scott extends to the selection of Scott's prose, namely the first chapter of The Heart of Midlothian. The story proper does not begin till chapter 2. I would advise a reader new to Scott to skip Chapter 1. What about printing one of Scott's short stories instead, "The Highland Widow" or "The Two Drovers"? If an excerpt must be used, what about the climax of Redgauntlet, with the dismissal of Bonnie Prince Charlie? The editors and/or publishers have prepared a book they think will _sell lots of copies_. Be warned that this has dictated some distortions. Giving three times the space to Mary Wollstonecraft as to Scott is an example. No doubt Wollstonecraft is important for understanding the currents of sensibility of the age and the voice that feminists did have; but then, where are the hymns of Charles Wesley, taken up by innumerable British people? You need to know something about them if you are to understand the period. Leaving them out really does the reader a disservice. Users of this book get an anthology that subtly distorts one's picture of the eras through which the selections move. Good luck to its users.
Rating:
Summary: Immaculate
Review: Of course as a student one is bound to hesitate before spending fifty quid on a book, but this one is absolutely worth ist. Abrams and Greenblatt have not just gathered what is indispensable in English literature; the Norton Anthology features brilliant introductions and short biographies, which are concise and readable. All the works presented are scrupulously annotated. And finally the reader gets suggestions for further reading which really help. There may be a bias towards poetry and high literature in the selection. Poetry, however, is the only genre in which an anthology of this size can give you almost everything you want to know. Individual edititons of classic novels or plays, however, are a lot easier to get hold of than books of poetry, so I feel the editors' choice is fully justified. You will find yourself turn back to the Norton Anthology even long after you have finished college; it is a book that opens up new worlds.
Rating:
Summary: It's the best! But buy it in hardback!
Review: Since this is a book you will want to have around for a lifetime, because you will want to refer to it over and over, why not get the hardback version? Believe it or not, it only costs a buck and a quarter extra!
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