W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. 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 ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature'' is an anthology of English literature published by W. W. Norton & Company, one of several such compendiums. First published in 1962, it has gone through ten editions; as of 2006 there were over eigh ...

'') 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 William Warder Norton (September 17, 1891 – November 7, 1945) was a publisher and co-founder of W. W. Norton & Company. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio, moved to New York City and started an import-export business, met and married Margaret Dows ...

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 celebrated its 100th anniversary.

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 ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature'' is an anthology of English literature published by W. W. Norton & Company, one of several such compendiums. First published in 1962, it has gone through ten editions; as of 2006 there were over eigh ...

'', 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 Penguin Classics is an imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English language, English, Spanish language, Spanish, Portuguese language, Portuguese, and Korean language, Korean amon ...

, 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

sourcebook A sourcebook is a collection of texts on a particular subject intended for use as an introduction to the subject. The selected texts are typically edited, laid out, and typeset in a uniform format before binding, and the result is often a hardcov ...

s 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 The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic. It was a central event in the memo ...

. 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 The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) is a non-profit association for state and local history, with a primary focus on history professionals, history volunteers, museums, historical societies, and other history-related organi ...

via a grant from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

.The States and the Nation
''librarything.com''. Retrieved June 29, 2021.

Notable authors

Dean Acheson Dean Gooderham Acheson ( ; April 11, 1893October 12, 1971) was an American politician and lawyer. As the 51st United States Secretary of State, U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to ...

* A. R. Ammons *

Diane Ackerman Diane Ackerman (born October 7, 1948) is an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her books and films. Education and career Ackerman received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Arts, Mas ...

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist and short-story writer, satirist and essayist known for psychologically provocative works of fiction that explore the relations between human psychology, technology, s ...

Andrea Barrett Andrea Barrett (born November 16, 1954) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her collection ''Ship Fever'' won the 1996 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction, and she received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001. Her book ''Servants of the ...

Vincent Bugliosi Vincent T. Bugliosi Jr. (; August 18, 1934 – June 6, 2015) was an American prosecutor and author who served as Deputy District Attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office between 1964 and 1972. He became best known for suc ...

Pete Buttigieg Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( ; born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former naval officer who served as the 19th United States Secretary of Transportation, United States secretary of transportation from 2021 to 2025. A me ...

Kate Brown Katherine Brown (born June 21, 1960) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 38th governor of Oregon from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she served three terms as the state representative from the 13th distr ...

Jared Diamond Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American scientist, historian, and author. In 1985 he received a MacArthur Genius Grant, and he has written hundreds of scientific and popular articles and books. His best known is '' Guns, G ...

Rita Dove Rita Frances Dove (born August 28, 1952) is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as United States Poet Laureate, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have bee ...

* John Dower *

Andre Dubus III Andre Dubus III (born September 11, 1959) is an American novelist and short story writer. He is a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Early life and education Born in Oceanside, California, to Patricia (née Lowe) an ...

Stephen Dunn Stephen Elliot Dunn (June 24, 1939June 24, 2021) was an American poet and educator who authored twenty-one collections of poetry. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 2000 collection, ''Different Hours,'' and received an Academy Award i ...

Erik Erikson Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American child psychoanalyst and visual artist known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity crisis. ...

Eric Foner Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstr ...

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...

Annette Gordon-Reed Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958) is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She ...

Stephen Greenblatt Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born November 7, 1943) is an American literary historian and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Greenblatt is the general editor of ''The Nort ...

* Pekka Hämäläinen *

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

Sam Harris Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, determinism, neuroscience, meditation ...

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

Sebastian Junger Sebastian Junger (born January 17, 1962) is an American journalist, author and filmmaker who has reported in-the-field on Dirty,_dangerous_and_demeaning, dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and the experience of Light_infantry#United_Sta ...

Eric Kandel Eric Richard Kandel (; born Erich Richard Kandel, November 7, 1929) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeo ...

* Mervyn King *

Nicole Krauss Nicole Krauss (born August 18, 1974) is an American author best known for her four novels '' Man Walks into a Room'' (2002), '' The History of Love'' (2005), '' Great House'' (2010) and '' Forest Dark'' (2017), which have been translated into ...

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American New Keynesian economics, New Keynesian economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He ...

Maxine Kumin Maxine Kumin (June 6, 1925 – February 6, 2014) was an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982. Biography Early years Maxine Kumin was born Maxine Winokur on June ...

Stanley Kunitz Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 28, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000. Biography Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massac ...

* Joseph P. Lash *

Michael Lewis Michael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) Gale Biography In Context. is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to '' Vanity Fair'' since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. ...

David Daokui Li Li Daokui (; born 22 December 1963) is a Chinese economist and the Mansfield Freeman Professor of Economics and director of the Center for China in the World Economy (CCWE) at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, where he t ...

* William S. McFeely *

Larry McMurtry Larry Jeff McMurtry (June 3, 1936March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas.

John Matteson John Matteson (born March 3, 1961) is an American professor of English and legal writing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his first book, '' Eden's Outc ...

John Mearsheimer John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar. He is R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer is best known for dev ...

* Edmund Morgan *

Patrick O'Brian Patrick O'Brian (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series. These sea novels are set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and ...

Chuck Palahniuk Charles Michael Palahniuk (;, , born February 21, 1962) is an American novelist of Ukrainian and French ancestry who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He has published 19 novels, three nonfiction books, two graphic novels, and two ad ...

Edmund Phelps Edmund Strother Phelps (born July 26, 1933) is an American economist and the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Early in his career, he became known for his research at Yale's Cowles Foundation in the first half o ...

Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky (born October 20, 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. He was the first United States Poet Laureate to serve three terms. Recognized worldwide, Pinsky's work has earned numerous accolades. Pinsky ...

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; November 29, 1899 – September 7, 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940 ...

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

Mary Roach Mary Roach (born March 20, 1959) is an American author specializing in popular science and humor. She has published seven New York Times bestsellers: '' Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers'' (2003), '' Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife ...

Russell Shorto Russell Anthony Shorto (born February 8, 1959) is an American author, historian, and journalist. He is is best known for his book on the New Amsterdam, Dutch origins of New York City, ''The Island at the Center of the World''. Shorto's research ...

* Jonathan D. Spence *

Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, political activist, and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2 ...

William Taubman William Chase Taubman (born November 13, 1941, in New York City) is an American political scientist. His biography of Nikita Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2004 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 2 ...

* Alan Taylor *

Neil deGrasse Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson ( or ; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysics, astrophysicist, author, and science communication, science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia Univ ...

* Harold E. Varmus * Isser Woloch *

Sean Wilentz Robert Sean Wilentz (; born February 20, 1951) is an American historian who serves as the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979. His primary research interests include U.S. ...

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology. Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequ ...

Fareed Zakaria Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (; born January 20, 1964) is an Indian-born American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's '' Fareed Zakaria GPS'' and writes a weekly paid column for ''The Washington Post.'' He has been a c ...

Hal Varian Hal Ronald Varian (born March 18, 1947, in Wooster, Ohio) is chief economist at Google and holds the title of emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he was founding dean of the School of Information. Varian is an econ ...

References

External links

*
W.W. Norton & Company records, 1923-1967
at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library {{DEFAULTSORT:W. W. Norton and Company 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 Educational publishing companies of the United States