Norris, Pamela

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NORRIS, Pamela

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o New York University Press, 838 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10003-4812.

CAREER: Writer. Teacher of English in London, Paris, and Zagreb, Croatia.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Sound the Deep Waters: Women's Romantic Poetry in the Victorian Age, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1992.

(Editor) Come Live with Me and Be My Love, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

(Editor) Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, C. E. Tuttle (Rutland, VT), 1993.

(Editor) Between the Apple-Blossom and the Water:Women Writing about Gardens, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1994.

(Editor) Through the Looking Glass Window Shines the Sun: An Anthology of Medieval Poetry and Prose, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1995.

Eve: A Biography, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1999, published as The Story of Eve, Picador (London, England), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Pamela Norris has edited works primarily by women, and she has also written a celebrated book on the biblical Eve. Norris's first editorial achievement resulted in the poetry compilation Sound the Deep Waters: Women's Romantic Poetry in the Victorian Age. This 1992 collection features poems by nineteenth-century American and British women poets, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Emily and Anne Brontë. The tone of the poems ranges from lighthearted to sad. Also included among the verses are fifty-two beautiful paintings of classical figures by Victorian men and women. The paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti appear with his sister's and wife's poetry. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly stated, "Romantic souls too shy to write a sentimental line to their loved ones on Valentine's Day may choose to proffer their compact and marvelously illustrated treasury instead."

Following Sound the Deep Waters, Norris edited works by Jane Austen, including Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice, as well as medieval poetry and prose and writings by women about gardens. Norris's book on Eve, which was published in the United States in 1999 as Eve: A Biography, attempts to explain the myths that surround Eve. Did Eve help or destroy humankind when she made the fateful decision to take a bite of the forbidden apple that led her and Adam to be ejected from the Garden of Eden into a harsh life filled with pain and death, but also with knowledge and independence? Was she tempted by Satan in the form of the snake or was it Eve's own decision to defy the word of God? Norris addresses these questions and discusses the connection between women and snakes as it became a common practice in the Middle Ages to illustrate a woman's head on a serpent's body. She also suggests that the story of Adam and Eve is hardly unique; the basic elements of their story are found in many European stories. She also compares Adam and Eve to an old Sierra Leone story about a couple named Adamu and Ifu. In this story, Ifu is seduced by a long, red, spotted snake.

In Eve: A Biography Norris also explores the mysterious woman mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis. This woman, Lilith, was Adam's first wife who left Adam and went on to create notoriety when she involved herself with a group of demons in the Red Sea. Eve differs from Lilith in that Eve was created from Adam's rib and her legend goes on to affect the world like no other. After her departure from the Garden of Eden, Eve disappears from the scriptures and is replaced by her daughters, including the wife of Noah, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah. When Eve's name is mentioned later, she has become a symbol of everything that is considered wrong with women. She is also blamed for all the suffering of men. This mistaken belief was clearly seen in the writings of classical authors who treated evil women as typical of their sex and good women as the exceptions. Norris disproves these beliefs, but she does not blame Adam or men in general for their treatment of women. Instead, she continues to focus on the theme that women should not be ashamed to be the daughters of Eve. Times Literary Supplement contributor Helen Cooper notes, "The Story of Eve charts the history-long struggle and symbiosis between those two inseparable myths: woman the bringer of death; woman the origin of life."