Norton Critical

Also included are three masques: Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemist at Court, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, and--new to the Second Edition--The Masque of Blackness, Jonson's first masque and one that deals with issues of interest to contemporary culture. Each text includes expanded annotations.

Jonson on His Work collects statements by the author on plays and on poetry taken from some of the plays, from Discoveries, and from Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden.

Contemporary Readers on Jonson includes tributes and poems about the author and his work. A new section--Backgrounds and Sources--includes selections from texts that helped shaped the dramatist's vision.

Criticism includes twelve essays--nine of them new to the Second Edition--by Jonas A. Barish, Robert C. Evans, Anne Barton, John Dryden, Robert Watson, Edward B. Partridge, Ian Donaldson, Richard Harp, D. J. Gordon, Stephen Orgel, John Mulryan, and Leah S. Marcus.

"Contexts" is thematically organized and includes a rich and varied selection of materials, both public and private, focusing on Hawthorne's inspirations for the novel. Included are letters, excerpts from journals, published accounts of Brook Farm and the growth of antebellum social reform, Hawthorne's letters to Sophia Peabody and Louisa Hawthorne about his first days at Brook Farm, and later letters describing his growing reservations about and decision to leave the utopian community. The Blithedale Romance raises interesting questions about the role of women, the popularity of mesmerism, and the growth of cities in mid-nineteenth-century America. Margaret Fuller, Charles Baudelaire, and Hawthorne, among others, provide invaluable insight.

"Criticism" begins with major contemporary reviews by Herman Melville, William B. Pike, George S. Hillard, James T. Fields, Henry Fothergill Chorley, and others that suggest The Blithedale Romance's initial reception. "Selections from Classic Studies" reprints key excerpts from influential essays published through the 1970s, including those by Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, Irving Howe, and James McIntosh.

"Recent Criticism" collects a striking range of scholarly interpretation by Nina Baym, Joel Pfister, Gillian Brown, Richard H. Brodhead, Lauren Berlant, Russ Castronovo, Robert S. Levine, and Richard H. Millington.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

This Norton Critical Edition of Gaskell's first novel is based on the 1854 Fifth Edition, the last edition corrected by the author.

"Contexts" includes letters related to Mary Barton's publication as well as Gaskell's reaction to her harshest critics. Ten contemporary reviews reflect the dual nature of the novel's critical reception: one group valuing its eye-opening moral energy and concern for the suffering of the working classes and the other group taking Gaskell to task for the deceptive implications of her perceived flawed reasoning. A section featuring fifteen illustrations from the novel offers readers the opportunity to explore narrative emphases.

"Criticism" collects seventeen major interpretations of the novel's central themes. Contributors include Kathleen Tillotson, Richard D. Altick, John Lucas, Catherine Gallagher, Hilary Schor, Deborah Epstein, Susan Zlotnick, Jonathan H. Grossman, and Liam Corley, among others.

A Chronology of Gaskell's life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

It is canonical as a cultural text, rather than a purely literary one, as this Norton Critical Edition reflects. An extensive "Contexts" section includes maps, photographs, and documents showing how and why Alger used the backdrop of New York City to highlight problems of urban poverty, immigration, and child labor in mid-nineteenth century America. "Criticism" is thematically organized around contemporary reviews and responses, the heated public debate about whether Alger should be available in American public libraries, parodies of and related responses to Alger, and four recent critical essays by Mary Wroth Walsh, Glenn Hendler, Michael Moon, and Hildegard Hoeller.