W W Norton Company imprint: 2439 books

An inspirational guide to charting your inner landscape through personal writing. Why write out of our lives? What can it do for us? How can sharing our stories connect us with others? Acclaimed novelist and essayist Lynn Lauber chronicles her journey as a writer and longtime teacher at creative...

"The Young Hemingway will entertain and surprise. Not only is it a significant contribution to Hemingway critical biography, but it should rank as one of the best nonfiction books of the year."—Los Angeles Times Michael Reynolds recreates the milieu that forged one of America's...

Rilke's timeless letters about poetry, sensitive observation, and the complicated workings of the human heart. Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings...

A selection of short stories from a twentieth-century “American master” (Dan Cryer, Newsday). A contemporary of Ann Beattie and Tobias Wolff, Frederick Busch was a master craftsman of the form; his subjects were single-event moments in so-called ordinary life. The stories in this volume,...

"A stunning biography…[A] truly singular account of the American Revolution." —Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire Through an intimate narrative of the life of painter John Singleton Copley, award-winning historian Jane Kamensky reveals the world of the American Revolution,...

"Biography at its best aims at resurrection. Anne Boyd Rioux has brought the novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson back to life for us. Hurrah!" —Robert D. Richardson, author of the Bancroft Prize–winning William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism Constance Fenimore Woolson...

"Smart, knowing, and deeply reported, the definitive history of one of modern American humor’s wellsprings." —Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland, host of NPR’s Studio 360 Labor Day, 1969. Two recent college graduates move to New York to edit a new magazine called The National...

The life and times of one of our most enchanting artists; a twentieth-century fairy tale, lovingly remembered and luminously told. Fourteen years ago, the artist Dorothea Tanning published Birthday, a collection of reminiscences. Now she has expanded it into a memoir of her journey through...

Seven essays celebrating the beauty of the imperfect marriage. We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage—eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates—leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still...

A collection of poignant essays about the transformative power of knitting by twenty-seven extraordinary writers. “The impressive collection of writers here have contributed essays that celebrate knitting and knitters. They share their knitting triumphs and disasters as well as their life...

The Birth of an Opera offers illuminating insight into how operas are written and the personalities, incidents, and musical circumstances that have shaped their composition. Through a deft compilation of primary sources—letters, memoirs, and personal accounts from composers, librettists,...

"Elegantly written, psychologically and historically astute."—Los Angeles Times Book Review From scholar to buccaneer, from outcast to establishment figure, John Donne emerged as one of the greatest English poets. Following Donne from Plague-ridden streets to palaces, from taverns...

"[A] lively and beautifully engineered biography." — John Banville, New York Review of Books Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous “Cambridge Five” spy ring, yet the extent of this shrewd, secretive man’s betrayal...

In highly charged, dazzling language, 4:30 Movie explores a sister’s death and the ways movies shape our imaginations. In poems that are by turns intimate and wild, provocative and tender, award-winning poet Donna Masini explores personal loss, global violence, and the consolations of art....