NEW YORK (AP) — M.H. Abrams, an esteemed critic, teacher and tastemaker who helped shape the modern literary canon as founding editor of the Norton Anthology of English Literature and joined the elite himself by writing one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed works of criticism, has died. He was 102.

Abrams’ death was confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday by Cornell University President David J. Skorton, who declined to give details. According to the website of the Ithaca-based university, where he was a longtime member of the English department, Abrams died Tuesday at the retirement community Kendal at Ithaca. No cause of death was given.

While at Cornell in the 1950s, Abrams was

asked by publisher W.W. Norton to lead a team of editors compiling excerpts of vital English works. The first edition of the Norton Anthology came out in 1962 and was an immediate success. Abrams stayed on through seven editions, into his 80s, as the book became required reading — or perusing — for millions of college students.

Abrams also wrote several books, notably the 1953 publication “The Mirror and the Lamp,” a groundbreaking work of literary theory that celebrated Byron, Keats and other British Romantic poets and popularized a field of study that emphasized how authors’ lives and feelings influenced their work. “The Mirror and the Lamp” was ranked No. 25 on a Modern Library list of the greatest Englishlanguage nonfiction books of the 20th century.

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