M. H. Abrams

M. H. Abrams (Ph.D. Harvard) is Class of 1916 Professor of English, Emeritus at Cornell University. He received the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Prize for The Mirror and the Lamp and the MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize for Natural Supernaturalism. He is also the author of The Milk of Paradise, A Glossary of Literary Terms, The Correspondent Breeze, and Doing Things with Texts. He is the recipient of Guggenheim, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Postwar fellowships, the Award in Humanistic Studies from the Academy of Arts and Sciences (1984), the Distinguished Scholar Award by the Keats-Shelley Society (1987), and the Award for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1990). In 1999 The Mirror and the Lamp was ranked twenty-fifth among the Modern Library’s "100 best nonfiction books written in English during the twentieth century."

Books by M. H. Abrams

  1. Book CoverThe Fourth Dimension of a Poem: and Other Essays


    A new collection of essays by the legendary literary scholar and critic.More

  2. Book CoverNatural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature


    "The first modern study of the Romantic achievement, its origins and evolution both in theory and practice."—Stuart M. Sperry, Jr., Indiana UnviersityMore

  3. Book CoverThe Norton Anthology of English Literature

    Eighth Edition / Volume(s): 1

    Read by millions of students over seven editions, The Norton Anthology of English Literature remains the most trusted undergraduate survey of English literature available and one of the most successful college texts ever published.More

  4. Book CoverThe Norton Anthology of English Literature

    Ninth Edition / Volume(s): 1

    The most-trusted literature anthology of all time, now in its 50th year.More

  5. Book CoverThe Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors

    Ninth Edition / Volume(s): One-Volume

    The most-trusted literature anthology.More

  6. Book CoverThe Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850


    This volume is the first to present Wordsworth's great poem in all three of its forms. It reprints, on facing pages, the version of The Prelude that was completed in 1805, together with the much-revised work published after the poets death in 1850. In addition, the editors include the two-part version of the poem, composed in 1798-99. Each of these poems possesses distinctive qualities and values; to read them together provides an incomparable chance to observe a great poet composing and re-composing, throughout a long life, his major work.More