W. W. Norton & Company

The roots of the company date to 1923, when William Warder Norton founded the firm with his wife Mary Dows Herter Norton, and became its first president. In the 1960s, Mary Norton offered most of her stock to its leading editors and managers.^[4] Storer D. Lunt took over in 1945 after Norton's death, and was succeeded by George Brockway (1957–1976), Donald S. Lamm (1976–1994), W. Drake McFeely (1994–2017),^[5] and Julia A. Reidhead (2017–present). Reidhead was vice president and publishing director of Norton's College division and a former editor of the Norton Anthologies.^[6]

Imprints of W. W. Norton include Norton Professional Books (professional works in mental health, well-being, architecture and design, and education), Countryman Press (lifestyle and instructional books, including healthy-living, cookbooks, and hiking guides), Liveright (20th century classics and new works), and Norton Young Readers (books for preschoolers to young adults).

In 2023, the company turned 100 years old.^[7]

Norton Anthologies collect canonical works from various literatures; perhaps the best known anthology in the series is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, which, as of 2018^[update], is in its 10th edition. Norton Anthologies offer general headnotes on each author, a general introduction to each period of literature, and annotations for every anthologized text.

Like Oxford World's Classics and Penguin Classics, Norton Critical Editions provide reprints of classic literature and in some cases, classic non-fiction works. However, unlike most critical editions, all Norton Critical Editions are sourcebooks that provide a selection of contextual documents and critical essays along with an edited text. Annotations to the text are provided as footnotes, rather than as endnotes.

The States and the Nation series was published in celebration of the United States Bicentennial. It comprised 51 volumes, one for each state and the District of Columbia. The series was administered by the American Association for State and Local History via a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.^[8]

• Oxford World's Classics
• Verso Book's Radical Thinkers
• Albatross Publishing House
• Boni & Liveright

• Official website  
• W.W. Norton & Company records, 1923-1967 at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library