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Biography

1. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography

   Benjamin Franklin, Joyce E. Chaplin

   New Edition

   The only edition of the celebrated Autobiography that includes the long-missing and recently identified “Wagon Letters.”More

2. The Book of Margery Kempe

   Margery Kempe, Lynn Staley

   The text presented here remains as faithful to the original Middle English as possible, without sounding archaic.More

3. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

   James D. Watson, Gunther S. Stent

   Since its publication in 1968, The Double Helix has given countless readers a rare and exciting look at one highly significant piece of scientific research—Watson and Crick's race to discover the molecular structure of DNA. In this Norton Critical Edition, Watson's lively and irreverent account is placed in historical perspective by Gunther Stent's introduction and by retrospective views from two major figures in the adventure, Francis Crick and Linus Pauling, and by Rosalind Franklin's last student, Aaron Klug.More

4. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

   Harriet Jacobs, Frances Smith Foster, Nellie Y. McKay

   Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the first full-length narrative written by a former woman slave in America.More

5. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself

   Olaudah Equiano, Werner Sollors

   The text of Equiano’s narrative presented here is that of the 1789 first edition.More

6. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

   Frederick Douglass, William L. Andrews, William S. McFeely

   Upon its publication in 1845, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself became an immediate best-seller.More

7. The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850

   William Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, Stephen Gill, Et Al.

   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

8. Red Cavalry

   Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine, Et Al.

   "Amazing not only as literature but as biography."—Richard Bernstein, The New York TimesMore

9. Roughing It in the Bush

   Susanna Moodie, Michael Peterman

   In 1832, Susanna Moodie immigrated to Canada from Britain with her husband and daughter in search of comfort and independence in the unsettled Canadian backwoods.More

10. The Souls of Black Folk

    W. E. B. Du Bois, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Terri Hume Oliver

    When it was published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk revolutionized thinking about the experience of African Americans in the United States.More

11. Up From Slavery

    Booker T. Washington, William L. Andrews

    Upon its publication in 1901, Up From Slavery became the most influential book written by an African American. As one of a handful of classic American autobiographies, its place in the literary and historical canons is assured. This Norton Critical Edition includes as its text the first book edition, published by Doubleday, Page and Company. The text is fully annotated and includes the index that appended the first book edition.More