Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces

This book truly does contain masterpieces of literature. The translations are accurate and readable. I have never enjoyed reading a collection of literature more.

Very good readings with author biographies and summaries. I had to buy this for a college class but I will not be selling this one after class is finished. It is quite heavy and the print is very small. But it packs a lot of classics, essays, poetry, and stories.

The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Vol. 1 / 0-393-96346-2 I own several anthologies for my private library, salvaged from college book sales over the years, and this is definitely one of my favorites. The world literature selections presented here really are from all over the world, and not are predominantly "western" writings. There's quite a bit of material that I haven't seen elsewhere (ancient Egyptian love songs, for example) and the translations are fluid and easy to read. I recommend this anthology for anyone looking to enrich a personal library with world literary selections. PART 1: BEGINNINGS TO 100 A.D. - Aeschylus - Aristophanes - Aristotle - Bhagavad-Gita - Catullus - Chinese Book of Songs - Chinese Nine Songs - Chuang Chou - Confucius - Egyptian Poetry - Epic of Gilgamesh - Euripides - Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) - Homer - Jataka - Mahabharata - Ovid - Petronius - Plato - Ramayana of Valmiki - Sappho of Lesbos - Sophocles - Tamil Anthologies - Virgil PART 2: 100 A.D. TO 1500 A.D. - Abolqasem Ferdowsi - Amaru - Augustine - Basavanna - Beowulf - Bhartrhari - Book of Dede Korkut - Chandidasa - Cilappatikaram - Dante Alighieri - Epic of Son-Jara - Everyman - Faridoddin Attar - Francois Villon - Gawain and the Green Knight - Geoffrey Chaucer - Giovanni Boccaccio - Govindadasa - Greek Bible (New Testament) - Han-Shan - Ibn Ishaq - Jalaloddin Rumi - Kalidasa - Kanze Kojiro Nobumitsu - Kokinshu - Koran - Li Ch'ing-Chao - Li Ho - Li Po - Li Shang-Yin - Mahadeviyakka - Man'yoshu - Marie de France - Mirabai - Murasaki Shikibu - Po Chu-I - Sa'di - Sei Shonagon - Somadeva - Song of Roland - Story of Deirdre - T'ao Ch'ien - Tale of the Heike - Thousand and One Nights - Tu Fu - Tu Mu - Tulsidas - Vidyapati - Visnusarman - Wanderer - Wang Wei - Yoshida Kenko - Yuan Chen - Zeami Motokiyo PART 3: 1500 A.D. TO 1650 A.D. - Cantares Mexicaons - Castiglione, Baldesar - de Cervantes, Miguel - de la Barca, Pedro Calderon - de Montaigne, Michel - de Navarre, Marguerite - Donne, John - Erasmus, Desiderius - Florentine Codex - Machiavelli, Niccolo - Marlowe, Christopher - Milton, John - Petrarch, Francis - Popul Vuh - Radelais, Francois - Shakespeare, William ~ Ana Mardoll

A year or so ago I realized that I had slowly, over a period of years, become a non reader. Work, a new baby, and TV had slowly eroded the hours a day I used to spend reading. I started getting up an hour early each day to read. As a non English major, there are many classics that I never got around to reading. After I completed reading Bloom's new poetry anthology, I turned to this volume, and its companion, which covers the Renaissance to modern world. Reading these two anthologies has been one of the more rewarding intellectual activities of my life. While coverage of literature from outside Europe is lighter than one might hope, the concentration of great literature is intoxicating. Reading this material without the help of a professor means I've undoubtedly missed things, but I've had the joy of figuring out things for my self. Besides, I'm reading this for me, not for some course.

This book has it all! This is the GREATEST collection of books ever printed!