W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly The Norton Anthology of English Literature) and its texts in the Norton Critical Editions series, both of which are frequently assigned in university literature courses.
History and overview
The roots of the company date to 1923, when William Warder Norton founded the firm with his wife Mary Dows Herter Norton, and became its first president. In the 1960s, Mary Norton offered most of her stock to its leading editors and managers. Storer D. Lunt took over in 1945 after Norton's death, and was succeeded by George Brockway (1957–1976), Donald S. Lamm (1976–1994), W. Drake McFeely (1994–2017), and Julia A. Reidhead (2017–present). Reidhead was vice president and publishing director of Norton's College division and a former editor of the Norton Anthologies.
Imprints of W. W. Norton include Norton Professional Books (professional works in mental health, well-being, architecture and design, and education), Countryman Press (lifestyle and instructional books, including healthy-living, cookbooks, and hiking guides), Liveright (20th century classics and new works), and Norton Young Readers (books for preschoolers to young adults).
In 2023, the company turned 100 years old.
Series
Norton Anthologies
Norton Anthologies collect canonical works from various literatures; perhaps the best known anthology in the series is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, which, , is in its 10th edition. Norton Anthologies offer general headnotes on each author, a general introduction to each period of literature, and annotations for every anthologized text.
Norton Critical Editions
Like Oxford World's Classics and Penguin Classics, Norton Critical Editions provide reprints of classic literature and in some cases, classic non-fiction works. However, unlike most critical editions, all Norton Critical Editions are sourcebooks that provide a selection of contextual documents and critical essays along with an edited text. Annotations to the text are provided as footnotes, rather than as endnotes.
The States and the Nation
The States and the Nation series was published in celebration of the United States Bicentennial. It comprised 51 volumes, one for each state and the District of Columbia. The series was administered by the American Association for State and Local History via a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Notable authors
Dean Acheson
A. R. Ammons
Diane Ackerman
J. G. Ballard
Andrea Barrett
Vincent Bugliosi
Pete Buttigieg
Kate Brown
Jared Diamond
Rita Dove
John Dower
Andre Dubus III
Stephen Dunn
Erik Erikson
Eric Foner
Nadine Gordimer
Annette Gordon-Reed
Stephen Greenblatt
Pekka Hämäläinen
Seamus Heaney
Sam Harris
Carl Jung
Sebastian Junger
Nicole Krauss
Eric Kandel
Paul Krugman
Maxine Kumin
Stanley Kunitz
Joseph Lash
Michael Lewis
William McFeely
Larry McMurtry
John Matteson
John Mearsheimer
Edmund Morgan
Chuck Palahniuk
Edmund Phelps
Robert Pinsky
Gustave Reese
Adrienne Rich
Mary Roach
Russell Shorto
Jonathan Spence
Joseph Stiglitz
William Taubman
Alan Taylor
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Harold Varmus
Isser Woloch
Sean Wilentz
Edward O. Wilson
Fareed Zakaria
Hal Varian
See also
Oxford World's Classics
Verso Book's Radical Thinkers
Albatross Publishing House
Boni & Liveright
References
External links
W.W. Norton & Company records, 1923-1967 at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library
American companies established in 1923
1923 establishments in New York (state) Book publishing companies based in New York City Employee-owned companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1923