In short, we have done the best we can, by surveying the entire field, by weighing and sifting all expressed concerns and recommendations, by testing our choices again with numerous specialists, and by involving many, many members of the profession at every stage of development. We believe we have a more various, a richer, a certainly more colorful and more broadly considered collection than any heretofore assembled. The possibilities with our anthology will simply be significantly wider than before. The writers and works have been, of course, organized, but all anthologies offer more than any one course can use. In The Heath Anthology , one may skip around more variously and, we hope, more constructively than ever before.
Many professors worry about the limitations of time and students.
These, again, are curricular and administrative questions that will be decided in departmental and even college-level meetings. It appears clear to us that more and different literary works are desired by a great percentage of the members of the profession. Our Teaching Guide will suggest ways to make the course manageable, interesting, and coherent, but each instructor will have further ideas about how to achieve these goals. Harold Kolb of the University of Virginia notes that the anthologies of the mid-50s have doubled in size over the last 30 years. Often, the task of constructing or revising an anthology becomes like taking an old colonial-style house, full of character and tradition, and adding on rooms, baths, and decks of similar or sometimes quite different architectural style.