"As It Happens" listeners share a unique tribute to MH Abrams, founding editor of Norton Anthology

If you took an English course at any point over the last half-century, then you probably have a book with the name "Abrams" on the spine. That book is probably one of the fattest ones on your shelf -- despite the fact that its pages are almost impossibly thin. It's called "The Norton Anthology of English Literature" and MH Abrams was its first-ever general editor.

"I thought that we'd get the anthology done in about a year, and the thing would have fair sales for about a decade or so," Abrams told the Cornell Alumni Magazine. "Instead of a year, it took four years, and instead of lasting a decade, it seems to have become eternal."

Abrams died on April 21st. He was 102.

Some of Abrams' anthologies include "The Mirror and the Lamp" — a reappraisal of the value of studying Romantic literature — and "Natural Supernaturalism," which explores the old religious underpinnings of Romantic thought.

If that sounds like some pretty heady stuff, it is. Abrams was part of a generation of Jewish scholars who transformed the way we study literature. His brilliance made him a natural to head the team commissioned by the publisher W.W. Norton to compile an overview of literature in English. "I never thought of establishing the English canon," he told Tablet magazine. "It was the farthest thing from my mind." 

Well, he kind of did establish the English canon. At least for a high percentage of people with that big fat book with impossibly thin pages on their shelves. Although he continued to resist the idea that the first edition, or any of the subsequent six editions he edited, were the final words on anything. "It's important not to let the anthology become institutionalised, or a monument," he once said. "It has to be a living, growing thing."

After our radio broadcast, our Twitter followers shared their own unique tribute to Abrams — replying with photos of their bookshelves filled with Norton Anthology texts. Thanks for sending them. Here's a few more: