"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the first full-length narrative written by a former woman slave in America. It tells the story of Harriet Jacobs's early life as a slave in North Carolina; her fugitive years in New York, Boston, and Rochester, where she became an abolition activist; and her struggle for freedom, hard won in 1852. This text is a reprint of the 1861 first edition, with explanatory annotations and an introduction by Nellie Y....

Based on events that took place in 1946 in the ancient Yoruban city of Oyo, Soyinka's play addresses classic issues of cultural conflict, tragic decision-making, and the psychological mindsets of individuals and groups. The text of the play is accompanied by an introduction and explanatory annotations for the many allusions to traditional Nigerian myth and culture. "Backgrounds and Sources" helps readers understand Death and the King's Horseman's...

"William Faulkner's provocative and enigmatic 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English-language novels of the twentieth century. This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition builds on the strengths of its predecessors while focusing new attention on both the novel's contemporary reception and its rich cultural and historical contexts. The text for the Third Edition is again that of the corrected...