Books : The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Middle Ages Through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century v. 1 (Norton Anthology of English Literature (Hardcover))

Rating: - Timeless
This anthology in both its volumes contains both complete works of literature, and extracts. It has a wide variety of poetry prose and drama chosen by a wide variety of editors. Not only does it run chronologically through English literature history, it contains collections of extracts based on subjects which have interested the editors. For example the first edition has a section of literature called "Women in Power."
This structure allows for both a student exploring literature through the ages and for someone who is simply interested.
The only real problem is that I can spend hours flicking through this anthology, perhaps without reading anything! There is so much to take in, and so little time to do it.
I have also noticed when reading the poetry that they don't always choose a poets most reknowned work and often the poems I expect to see are not there. However, this seems to be the result of very concise editing which instead portrays the different sides of a poet, not to mention preventing an already sturdy 6000 page tome (for both volumes) from becoming double that amount!
I have only just begun to explore this anthology and I have come to understand that I will be exploring it for many years. It has all the marks of a book which will last forever. I highly recommend this anthology.