Textbook prices continue to rise at disturbing rates, putting great strain on student budgets. To give you information for planning your textbook purchasing for next term, I am listing here the textbook titles that will appear on the course syllabuses when the course convenes. One important note: almost every text is available as a used book from used book dealers. And the bookstore will have the standard course text available in September.
While in a few instances, it will be necessary for you to acquire a specific edition for a particular course, most literary texts exist in a number of different editions, many of which are acceptable for course purposes. So if you already have an older edition of a literary classic at home, please feel free to use it.
There is, however, one important caveat to observe. Some editions have inferior editing, and I specify below particular editions that will serve you better.
If you have questions or suggestions, please send an e-mail message.
![[Go to Intro. to Lit.]](gif/bt-introlit2.jpg)
Introduction to Literature (ENGL 250)
The course will use The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature (ed. Meyers) 8th Edition. While it lacks two or three texts we will need for the course, those texts are in the public domain and available on the internet, and we will avail ourselves of that source.
The short novel for the course is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
Keep in mind that most of the texts chosen for an Introduction to Literature course are in the public domain, and many of them can be downloaded from free text sites on the internet. By using that tactic, however, you miss out on the textual notes and study aids included in the anthology.
![[Go to American Renaissance]](gif/bt-amrn2.gif)
American Renaissance (ENGL 371)
Some version of the texts in the American Renaissance course are in the public domain. See the course website for links to the free download sites.
If you are planning to attend graduate school, I recommend that you acquire the Norton Critical Editions where they are available. Norton Critical Editons are well-edited, they are inexpensive, and they have notes and critical essays that will aid your further study. You can annotate them now and take them with you to graduate school. Because the Norton texts will also be chosen for the course, I recommend that everyone acquire those texts, but you are welcome to download free copies of the texts from text sites.
EMERSON:
The best anthology for Emerson is, interestingly enough, not the Norton but the Houghton-Mifflin version edited by Stephen Whicher. This edition is preferable because it follows the development of Emerson's thought by placing journal entries and letters alongside the crucial essays as Emerson's ideas evolves. A new problem with the Whicher editon is that it seems to have gone out of print. The Norton Critical Edition, which is excellent, is organized by genre AND it is available.
THOREAU:
WHITMAN:
HAWTHORNE:
MELVILLE:
DICKINSON:
There is no Norton Critical Edition for Dickinson's poems. Students going to graduate school are advised to acquire The Complete Poems. Other students might wish to use Final Harvest. But you might want to spring for the Complete Poems anyway. The price differential is minimal, and both editions are abundantly available very inexpensively as used books.
![[Go to African Amer. Lit.]](gif/bt-afam3.gif)
African American Literature (ENGL 384)
|
