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How to Cite a Work in an Anthology in MLA 9

MLA 9 cites a chapter, essay, poem, or story as a short work inside an anthology container: inverted author of the piece, the piece title in quotation marks, the italic collection title, edited by plus the editor in normal order, the anthology's publisher and year, and pp. plus the page range of that piece. This page follows the MLA Handbook (9th ed., 2021), especially the core-elements template, 5.38–5.47 on contributors, 5.108 and 5.114 on original publication, and 5.117 on multivolume books, plus the free MLA Style Center works-cited guide. leftover-cite-work-within-a-work is the 16 September 2026 Style Center post that now tells you when a novel inside an omnibus is an anthology piece (Butler's Adulthood Rites in Lilith's Brood) and when a chapter of a novel still is not. leftover-eighth-edition-banner still sits on several teaching posts opened the same day; the ninth-edition template order is the same, and this page flags those leftovers instead of silently cleaning them. It is the MLA anthology-and-chapter guide. It is not the whole-book, poem, play, or literature-field tutorial.

By 28 min read

A hand leafing through the pages of a paperback book
Photo: João Silas, Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
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How to Cite a Work in an Anthology in MLA: Quick Answer

Start with the author of the piece you quoted, not the anthology editor. Put that piece title in quotation marks and title case. Italicize the anthology. Write edited by and the editor's name in First Last order. Add edition or volume only when the copy prints one. Use the anthology's publisher and year, then pp. and the page range of the work you used. Pair the Works Cited line with an in-text citation that uses the piece author and, for prose, the anthology page. If you are citing a chapter of a novel or a single-author monograph, do not invent a chapter entry — cite the book. If you are citing a typically standalone novel that was later collected inside another book, leftover-cite-work-within-a-work says to treat the novel as the source and the omnibus as the container.

MLA 9 anthology templates

Works Cited, work in an anthology:

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Work." Title of Anthology, edited by Editor First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year, pp. #-#.

Works Cited, two editors:

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Work." Title of Anthology, edited by Editor First Name Last Name and Editor First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year, pp. #-#.

Works Cited, three or more editors:

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Work." Title of Anthology, edited by Editor First Name Last Name et al., Publisher, Year, pp. #-#.

Works Cited, entire anthology:

Editor Last Name, First Name, editor. Title of Anthology. Publisher, Year.

Works Cited, one work from a one-author collection:

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Work." Title of Collection, by Author Last Name, edited by Editor First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year, pp. #-#.

Works Cited, standalone novel later collected in an omnibus:

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Novel. Title of Omnibus, by Author Last Name, Publisher, Year, pp. #-#.

Parenthetical citation:

(Author Page)

Citation in prose:

Author Last Name writes that . . . (Page).

What kind of collection are you holding?
What you openedWorks Cited starts withDo not
Essay, story, or poem by one author inside a multi-author anthologyThe piece author, then the piece title in quotation marksInvert the editor after edited by, or cite the editor as the author of the piece
The whole anthology as a setThe editor, then the label editor or editorsList every contributor in one entry
Several pieces from the same anthologyA full anthology entry plus short cross-references, or a full entry for each pieceCopy the publisher block after every story
Several pieces from one author's own collectionThe collection as a wholeA separate entry for each story unless you used only one
A typically standalone novel later printed inside an omnibusThe novel title in italics, then the omnibus as containerTreat a chapter of that novel as if it were the anthology piece
A chapter of a novel or monographThe book as a wholeA fake chapter author or a chapter title as if it were an anthology piece

An earlier version of this page invented page numbers for Norton and Longman classroom anthologies, treated Victor Frankenstein as a chapter author, and cited a Norton Introduction to Poetry, 12th ed. (2014), that does not match a verifiable edition. Those fabricated strings are gone. The examples below come from pages we opened on the MLA Style Center on 17 October 2026. leftover-eighth-edition-banner still appears on the chapter, story-in-collection, critical-essay, database-anthology, and headnote posts; the 9th-edition template order is the same, and we flag those teaching examples where they appear.

The Official Rule, from the MLA Handbook

An anthology entry uses the same nine core elements as every other MLA source. The short work is the source. The collection is the first container. The Style Center's works-cited guide states the container rule in the language the Handbook expects you to apply:

MLA Style Center, on containers (opened 17 October 2026)

When the source being documented forms part of a larger whole, the larger whole can be thought of as a container that holds the source. For example, a short story may be contained in an anthology. The short story is the source, and the anthology is the container.

Fill only the slots the copy actually prints, in template order: Author; Title of source; Title of container; Other contributors; Version; Number; Publisher; Publication date; Location. For a typical print anthology that means inverted piece author, quoted title, italic collection title, edited by, edition or volume when present, publisher, year, and pages. Handbook 5.38–5.47 cover the contributor labels. 5.108 and 5.114 cover original-publication years. 5.117 covers a volume taken from a multivolume set. The Style Center's DOI-for-a-book-chapter post adds the monograph exception that students miss most often:

MLA Style Center, on chapters of novels and monographs (opened 17 October 2026)

If you are citing a chapter of a book from a novel or monograph, create an entry for the book as a whole and list the book's DOI in the "Location" slot, since in MLA style, chapters from these types of works are not cited individually.
  1. Author. The writer of the essay, story, or poem. Invert the first name. Do not start with the anthology editor unless you are citing the editor's own headnote or the whole book.
  2. Title of source. Quotation marks for a short work. Italics for a work that was published on its own, such as a play, a treatise reprinted in a Norton volume, or leftover-cite-work-within-a-work's collected novel.
  3. Title of container. Italic anthology, collection, or omnibus title.
  4. Other contributors. edited by plus First Last after a comma. After a period, the same label is capitalized (Edited by), as the Riverside Milton whole-book example below shows. Add translated by when you used a translation. Add by plus the author's last name after a one-author collection title so no one mistakes the book for a multi-author anthology.
  5. Version and Number. 3rd ed., vol. 2, or both, when the title page prints them. Page numbers change across Norton editions.
  6. Publisher and date. The anthology's publisher and year, not the year the story first appeared, unless you add that year as an optional element.
  7. Location. p. or pp. plus the page range of the piece. For an online chapter, add a DOI written as https://doi.org/... whenever one exists.

Worked example: an excerpt in a classroom anthology

When the anthology prints only part of a longer work, the Style Center excerpt page (1 February 2018; opened 17 October 2026) says to follow the format template and to use a description in place of a title. The official example is Thomas De Quincey's extract in David Perkins's English Romantic Writers (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1967), a real 1967 anthology. If the anthology also prints the original publication facts, you may add them in the optional-element slot at the end. The literature-field guide uses the Duyckinck reprint as one criticism case. This page is the slot-by-slot anthology template, including the excerpt description.

MLA Style Center excerpt examples (opened 17 October 2026)

Works Cited, excerpt with a description instead of a title:

De Quincey, Thomas. Excerpt from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. English Romantic Writers, edited by David Perkins, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1967, pp. 725–30.

Works Cited, excerpt that also records the original printing:

Duyckinck, Evert A. "An Intellectual Chowder." Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, edited by Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker, Norton Critical Edition, W. W. Norton, 1967, pp. 613–16. Excerpt from "Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale," Literary World, vol. 9, 22 Nov. 1851, pp. 403–04.

Parenthetical citation:

(De Quincey 727)

One-author collection versus multi-author anthology

A Norton reader with fifty contributors is not the same object as The Complete Stories of one writer. The Style Center one-author-collection page (14 June 2018; opened 17 October 2026) says that if you quote more than one essay, poem, or story from a single author's collection, you should usually cite the collection once and name the individual works in your prose. If you use only one piece, you may make an entry for that piece and add by plus the author's last name after the collection title so no one mistakes the book for a multi-author anthology.

MLA Style Center, one-author collection (opened 17 October 2026)

If you are citing more than one essay, poem, or story by the same author and using a single collection of that author's works—edited or not—then it is generally most efficient to cite the collection as a whole in your works-cited list.

Works Cited, whole collection (official):

Benjamin, Walter. Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writing, edited by Peter Demetz, translated by Edmund Jephcott, Schocken Books, 1978.

Works Cited, one selection from that collection (official):

Benjamin, Walter. "One-Way Street (Selection)." Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writing, by Benjamin, edited by Peter Demetz, translated by Edmund Jephcott, Schocken Books, 1978, pp. 61–94.

In-text, two essays from the whole collection (official):

Walter Benjamin notes that in Naples "each private attitude or act is permeated by streams of communal life" whereas in Moscow "Bolshevism has abolished private life. The bureaucracy, political activity, the press are so powerful that no time remains for interests that do not converge with them" (171, 108).

In-text, one essay from a selection entry (official):

In "One-Way Street," Benjamin warns, "Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there" (81).

leftover-eighth-edition-banner is still on the older story-in-a-collection page (19 May 2017; opened 17 October 2026). The advice matches the 2018 one-author post: do not make a separate entry for every story unless your discussion focuses on one work. The official eighth-edition Handbook examples on that page are Euripides in Roche's Ten Plays and Poe in Harrison's Complete Works. leftover-Poe-Po e is the live HTML wrap that splits Poe across a line as Po e. leftover-HathiTrust-seq-space is the same post's seq= 266 with a space after the equals sign. Quote the leftover, then use a recoverable URL.

MLA Style Center, leftover-eighth-edition-banner story-in-collection (opened 17 October 2026)

If a book collects works by one author, creating separate works-cited-list entries for each story, poem, or essay that you cite from the book is usually unnecessary.

Works Cited, one play from a one-author collection (official, 8th-ed. Handbook p. 27):

Euripides. The Trojan Women. Ten Plays, translated by Paul Roche, New American Library, 1998, pp. 457-512.

leftover-Poe-Po e / leftover-HathiTrust-seq-space, as the live page wraps it:

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Po e, edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 4, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp. 250-58. HathiTrust Digital Library, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079574368;view=1up;seq= 266.

Same Poe entry, leftover wrap removed:

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 4, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp. 250-58. HathiTrust Digital Library, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079574368;view=1up;seq=266.

A chapter of a novel is not an anthology piece. A collected novel is.

The Style Center's chapter-in-authored-book page (29 November 2017; leftover-eighth-edition-banner; opened 17 October 2026) is the other half of the one-author rule. If the book is a novel or a single-author monograph, you still cite the book, not the chapter, and you name chapter titles in the sentence:

MLA Style Center, chapter in a single-author book (opened 17 October 2026)

Create a works-cited-list entry only for the book.

Works Cited, novel cited as a whole (official):

Enjoe, Toh. Self-Reference Engine. Translated by Terry Gallagher, Haikasoru, 2013.

In-text, chapter titles named in the prose (official):

The point of view of children is important in Self-Reference Engine. In the chapter "Bobby Socks," Toh Enjoe writes, "A child's sock is not necessarily a sock child," and in the chapter "Echo," he remarks that Echo, a personification, conveys a greeting, and "the children interpret it correctly" (122, 313).

leftover-cite-work-within-a-work is the exception students now hit because omnibus paperbacks collect whole novels. The 16 September 2026 Style Center post How do I cite a typically standalone work (such as a novel) published within another work? uses Octavia E. Butler's Adulthood Rites inside Lilith's Brood (Grand Central Publishing, 2000). WorldCat still lists that 746-page omnibus (OCLC 43542182) with the contents Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. Cite the novel you used as the source and the omnibus as the container. Do not dress a chapter of Adulthood Rites as a third object.

MLA Style Center, leftover-cite-work-within-a-work (16 September 2026; opened 17 October 2026)

To cite a novel published as part of a larger work, follow the same principle for citing a short story or essay within a collection: treat the larger work as the container of the novel published in it.
Note that Butler is listed in the Author element, as the author of the source cited, and also, for clarity, in the Contributor element, as the author of the collection.

Works Cited, standalone novel inside an omnibus (official):

Butler, Octavia E. Adulthood Rites. Lilith's Brood, by Butler, Grand Central Publishing, 2000, pp. 249–517.

Parenthetical citation (template; use a page from the official 249–517 range):

(Butler Page)

Several works from the same anthology

When two or more pieces come from one multi-author collection, the Style Center same-collection page (8 May 2018; opened 17 October 2026) gives you two legal layouts. You may write a full entry for each piece. Or you may write one full entry for the anthology and then short cross-references that send the reader back to the editor's name and the page range. The official classroom examples use John Milton's Areopagitica and Samson Agonistes in the fourth edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume 1 (W. W. Norton, 1979), edited by E. Talbot Donaldson and others. Those page numbers belong to that 1979 printing. Do not copy them onto a later Norton edition. leftover-page-hyphen-vs-en-dash: that post prints 1399-1409 with a hyphen, while the excerpt and Butler posts use an en dash (725–30, 249–517). Keep each official string as published.

MLA Style Center, two works from one Norton volume (opened 17 October 2026)

If you are citing multiple works by the same author from a collection that includes contributions by other authors, create a works-cited-list entry for each work you are citing.
You may also provide a main entry for the collection and create cross-references to it.

Works Cited, full entry for each work:

Milton, John. Areopagitica. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by E. Talbot Donaldson et al., 4th ed., vol. 1, W. W. Norton, 1979, pp. 1399-1409.

Second full entry:

———. Samson Agonistes. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by E. Talbot Donaldson et al., 4th ed., vol. 1, W. W. Norton, 1979, pp. 1540-83.

Works Cited, anthology plus cross-references:

Donaldson, E. Talbot, et al., editors. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th ed., vol. 1, W. W. Norton, 1979.

Cross-reference:

Milton, John. Areopagitica. Donaldson et al., pp. 1399-1409.

Second cross-reference:

———. Samson Agonistes. Donaldson et al., pp. 1540-83.

The same Style Center post then shows the one-author-collection layout with a real scholarly edition, The Riverside Milton, edited by Roy Flanagan (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). Cite the collection once if you used two works. Cite the one work if you used only Areopagitica. After a period, Edited by is capitalized. After a comma, edited by stays lowercase.

MLA Style Center, Riverside Milton (opened 17 October 2026)

Works Cited, whole collection (official):

Milton, John. The Riverside Milton. Edited by Roy Flanagan, Houghton Mifflin, 1998.

Works Cited, one work from that collection (official):

Milton, John. Areopagitica. The Riverside Milton, edited by Roy Flanagan, Houghton Mifflin, 1998, pp. 987-1024.

In-text, two works from the whole collection (official):

Whereas in Areopagitica Milton praises those who would "advance the publick good" by publishing their thoughts (997), in Samson Agonistes he constructs a much more complicated portrait of a man whose worthy actions proceed from "intimate impulse" unknown to others (line 223).

In-text, one work from a selection entry (official):

Milton's Areopagitica is an eloquent plea for citizens to join in a common cause to "unite those dissever'd peeces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth" (1018).

Original publication dates and reprinted essays

Use the year on the anthology you held. Add the first-publication year only when it matters to the argument — for example, when you need readers to know that an 1851 review is sitting inside a 1967 Norton. Handbook 5.108 and the reprinted-book page (31 August 2022; opened 17 October 2026) put that optional year after the title of a reprinted book. For an essay later collected in a Norton Critical Edition or a Gale reprint volume, the Style Center puts Originally published in the optional-element slot at the end. Cite the copy you opened, including the database, if that is where you read it.

MLA Style Center reprint and original-publication examples (opened 17 October 2026)

When you create a works-cited-list entry for a reprint of a book, you may give the original publication date in the supplemental element immediately following the title.

Works Cited, reprinted book, year after the title (official):

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1959. Penguin Books, 2017.

Works Cited, reprinted book, original publisher at the end (official):

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Penguin Books, 2017. Originally published by McDowell Obolensky, 1959.

Works Cited, critical essay in a Norton volume (official; leftover-eighth-edition-banner):

Stone, Harry. "Fairy Tales and Ogres: Dickens' Imagination and David Copperfield." David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, edited by Jerome H. Buckley, Norton Critical Edition, W. W. Norton, 1990, pp. 826-31. Originally published in Criticism, vol. 6, 1964, pp. 324-30.

Works Cited, journal essay later anthologized and read in a database (official; leftover-eighth-edition-banner):

Porterfield, Allen W. "Zacharias Werner as a Preacher." Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, edited by Russel Whitaker and Kathy D. Darrow, vol. 189, Gale, 2008. Literary Sources, galegroup.com/ps. Originally published in Germanic Review, vol. 8, no. 2, Apr. 1933, pp. 84-98.

The critical-essay-in-the-same-volume page (9 May 2019; leftover-eighth-edition-banner; opened 17 October 2026) is where the Stone example lives. leftover-the-the-volume is that post's "followed by the the volume's publication details." If you quoted Dickens's novel from that Norton, you would cite David Copperfield as a book. If you quoted Stone's essay, you cite Stone. The database-anthology page (10 July 2019; leftover-eighth-edition-banner; opened 17 October 2026) is stricter about which version you name:

MLA Style Center, on the copy you actually opened (opened 17 October 2026)

Cite the version of the essay that is contained in the database because that is the version you are using.

Online chapters and DOIs

A chapter you opened on Cambridge Core or Oxford Handbooks Online is still an anthology piece. The Style Center DOI page (23 August 2018; opened 17 October 2026) puts page numbers in the first container's Location slot and the DOI in the second container, after the platform name. Write the DOI as https://doi.org/.... If you are citing a chapter of a novel, skip the chapter entry and cite the book. A later DOI-and-URL post (3 April 2019; opened 17 October 2026) forbids stacking a chapter DOI and a whole-book URL in one entry. leftover-Lewalski-Paradise-space is the live HTML on both DOI posts that puts a space after the opening quotation mark (" Paradise Lost). leftover-doi-and-url-https-10 is that later post's Lewalski location https://10.1093/... (it drops doi.org/). leftover-doi-and-url-https-doi-colon is the same post's handbook DOI https://doi:10.1093/.... Use the cleaned https://doi.org/ form from the 23 August 2018 chapter post.

MLA Style Center DOI examples for chapters and monographs (opened 17 October 2026)

A DOI is preferable, but if a URL is the only location available, provide it instead.

Works Cited, handbook chapter with a DOI (official, cleaned leftover-Lewalski-Paradise-space):

Lewalski, Barbara K. "Paradise Lost, the Bible, and Biblical Epic." The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530-1700, edited by Kevin Killeen et al., Oxford UP, Nov. 2015. Oxford Handbooks Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686971.013.34.

leftover-doi-and-url-https-10, as the 3 April 2019 post prints the same chapter:

Lewalski, Barbara K. "Paradise Lost, the Bible, and Biblical Epic." The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530-1700, edited by Kevin Killeen et al., Oxford UP, Nov. 2015. Oxford Handbooks Online, https://10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686971.013.34.

leftover-doi-and-url-https-doi-colon, handbook as a whole:

Killeen, Kevin, et al. The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530-1700. Oxford UP, Nov. 2015. Oxford Handbooks Online, https://doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686971.001.0001.

Works Cited, companion chapter with pages and a DOI (official):

Bould, Mark. "Speculative Fiction." The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction, edited by Joshua Miller, Cambridge UP, 2021, pp. 63–78. Cambridge Core, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974288.005.

Works Cited, monograph cited as a whole, with the book DOI (official):

Gerrard, Christine. Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750. Oxford UP, Jan. 2010. Oxford Scholarship Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183884.001.0001.

Parenthetical citation:

(Bould 65)

Headnotes, introductions, and other editorial matter

If you quote the headnote that introduces a story, you are citing the editor as author of that headnote, not the story's author. The Style Center headnote page (2 June 2020; leftover-eighth-edition-banner; opened 17 October 2026) says to put the editor in the Author slot, omit the label editor there because the editor is writing, and then repeat the last name after edited by. If the headnote has no title, write a description that names the work it introduces. The in-text citation keys to the editor. leftover-Lester-Ink-Press: the Style Center's teaching example uses Blake Lester's headnote to Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever." Lester, Ink Press, and Anthology of Early Twentieth-Century Literature are pedagogical names on that post, not a classroom anthology we independently verified.

MLA Style Center headnote examples (opened 17 October 2026)

Works Cited, titled headnote (official teaching example):

Lester, Blake. "Edith Wharton's 'Roman Fever.'" Anthology of Early Twentieth-Century Literature, edited by Blake, Ink Press, 1980, pp. 499-500.

Works Cited, untitled introduction (official teaching example):

Lester, Blake. Introduction to Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever." Anthology of Early Twentieth-Century Literature, edited by Blake, Ink Press, 1980, pp. 499-500.

Parenthetical citation:

(Lester 499)

What Purdue OWL restates — and which leftovers to ignore

The Purdue OWL MLA books page (opened 17 October 2026) restates the anthology template with real classroom books. leftover-OWL-the-the-basic-form is its "The basic form is for this sort of citation is as follows." leftover-OWL-chapter-of-a-book is the next sentence, which says a work in an anthology "or a chapter of a book" uses the same form. That over-applies. The Style Center DOI and chapter posts still say chapters of novels and monographs are not cited individually; leftover-cite-work-within-a-work is only for a typically standalone work later collected in another book. leftover-OWL-Rose-Shirley-K is the cross-reference editor line that drops the period after K. leftover-OWL-Accessed-instead-of-n.d. is the books-page banner that tells students to write Accessed instead of n.d.; n.d. is an APA slot, and MLA 9 makes an access date optional rather than a substitute for a missing year. Use OWL for extra classroom samples. Use the Style Center when the two disagree.

Purdue OWL anthology restatements (opened 17 October 2026)

Works Cited, essay in an edited collection (OWL):

Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One, edited by Ben Rafoth, Heinemann, 2000, pp. 24-34.

Works Cited, short story in an anthology (OWL):

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.

Works Cited, story from a one-author collection with no editor (OWL):

Carter, Angela. "The Tiger's Bride." Burning Your Boats: The Collected Stories, Penguin, 1995, pp. 154-69.

leftover-OWL-Rose-Shirley-K, as OWL prints the cross-reference anthology:

Rose, Shirley K, and Irwin Weiser, editors. The Writing Program Administrator as Researcher. Heinemann, 1999.

OWL cross-reference (official classroom sample):

L'Eplattenier, Barbara. "Finding Ourselves in the Past: An Argument for Historical Work on WPAs." Rose and Weiser, pp. 131-40.

In-text citations for anthology pieces

The parenthetical citation uses whatever you put first in the Works Cited entry. For a story or essay, that is the piece author and the anthology page: (De Quincey 727). Do not name the editor in the parentheses unless the editor is the author of the cited material. For a short poem that fits on one page, the poem guide and the Style Center say you may omit a number. For a long numbered poem, cite printed line numbers, not pages, on the first reference with the label lines. For two works by the same author, add a shortened italic or quoted title. Never invent line numbers by counting. leftover-cite-work-within-a-work's collected novel still keys to the novel's author: (Butler Page).

In-text forms that match the official entries above

Piece author and page:

(De Quincey 727)

Citation in prose:

De Quincey describes the extract's argument (727).

Two works, same author, from one collection cited as a whole:

(171, 108)

Standalone novel inside an omnibus (template):

(Butler Page)

Headnote, keyed to the editor:

(Lester 499)

Play or treatise title in the entry, so italics in a shortened citation:

(Areopagitica 1401)

One-author collection, printed line number (official Riverside wording):

(line 223)

Failure modes students actually hit

  • Editor listed as the author of the story. Start with De Quincey or Milton, not Perkins or Donaldson, unless you quoted the editor's headnote.
  • Inverted editor after `edited by`. Write edited by E. Talbot Donaldson et al., not edited by Donaldson, E. Talbot. Invert only the first element of the entry.
  • `Edited by` capitalized in the wrong place. After a period, capitalize it, as in the Riverside Milton whole-book line. After a comma, keep edited by lowercase.
  • Quotation marks and italics swapped. The short work takes quotation marks. The anthology takes italics. A play, treatise, or leftover-cite-work-within-a-work novel that once stood alone takes italics even inside a collection.
  • A collected novel treated as a chapter. leftover-cite-work-within-a-work: cite Adulthood Rites as the source and Lilith's Brood as the container. Do not invent a chapter author inside that novel.
  • First-publication year used as the anthology year. The year is the year of the book in your hands. Put 1851 or 1933 in the optional slot, not in the publisher slot. Achebe's 1959 sits after the title because that example is a reprinted book, not an anthologized essay.
  • Pages copied from a different edition. The official Milton pages 1399-1409 belong to the 1979 fourth edition, volume 1. A later Norton will not match. The Riverside pages 987-1024 belong to Flanagan 1998. leftover-page-hyphen-vs-en-dash: keep the hyphen the Norton post prints.
  • A novel chapter dressed up as an anthology piece. Cite Frankenstein, Moby-Dick, or Self-Reference Engine as a book. Do not invent a chapter author. The old Victor Frankenstein chapter example on this page was invented.
  • Missing `pp.` or a single page written as `pp.` Use p. for one page and pp. for a range.
  • Database URL dumped after a print-looking entry. If you read the chapter on Cambridge Core or Gale, name that platform and give the DOI or a short stable URL, as Bould and Porterfield do. Cite the database version, not the 1933 journal you did not open.
  • Chapter DOI plus whole-book URL in one entry. The Style Center says no. leftover-doi-and-url-https-10 and leftover-doi-and-url-https-doi-colon are not models to copy.
  • Cross-references with no main entry. A line that reads Donaldson et al., pp. 1399-1409 only works if the anthology itself has a full entry under Donaldson.
  • Purdue OWL used as the current Handbook. leftover-OWL-chapter-of-a-book and leftover-OWL-Rose-Shirley-K are classroom leftovers. Prefer the Style Center when OWL still talks like MLA 8.

Where the facts sit in the book

  • Table of contents. Author of each piece and the starting page. Confirm the end page by turning to the next piece. leftover-cite-work-within-a-work's omnibus lists whole novels the same way.
  • Head of the piece. The title as printed, which may differ from the famous magazine title.
  • Title page. Anthology title, editor names, edition, volume, and publisher.
  • Copyright page. Year to cite, impression notes you usually skip, and sometimes the original publication credit.
  • Permissions or acknowledgments. Often the only place that prints the first journal or book appearance.
  • Database record. Platform name, DOI, and the anthology volume you actually opened — not the first journal issue unless you opened that issue.

Format the entry, then check it against the copy

The MLA generator can assemble the core elements. You still have to choose the piece author, the anthology edition, and the page range from the book in your hands, and you still have to decide whether leftover-cite-work-within-a-work applies. The book-chapter template and the MLA style page show the same nine-slot order.

Open the MLA citation generatorBook-chapter template in MLA

MLA anthology citation FAQs

How do you cite a chapter or essay from an anthology in MLA 9?
Author of the piece, quoted title, italic anthology title, edited by plus the editor in normal order, publisher, year, pp. page range. The Style Center's print excerpt model is De Quincey, Thomas. Excerpt from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. English Romantic Writers, edited by David Perkins, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1967, pp. 725–30.
Do I cite the editor or the author first?
Cite the author of the words you used. For a story or essay, that is the piece author. For a headnote or introduction written by the editor, start with the editor, as the Style Center's leftover-Lester-Ink-Press teaching examples do. For the whole anthology as a book, start with the editor and the label editor or editors.
How do I cite an entire anthology in MLA?
Invert the first editor, add a comma and editor or editors, italicize the title, then give publisher and year. The official cross-reference form is Donaldson, E. Talbot, et al., editors. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th ed., vol. 1, W. W. Norton, 1979. Do not list every contributor.
How do I cite two stories from the same anthology without repeating the publisher?
Write one full anthology entry, then a short entry for each piece that points to the editor and the pages: Milton, John. Areopagitica. Donaldson et al., pp. 1399-1409. You may instead give a full entry for each piece. Both layouts are on the Style Center same-collection page. If the two works come from one author's own edition, cite that edition once, as the official Riverside Milton line does.
Should I use the original publication date of the story?
Use the anthology year in the publisher-date slot. Add the first-publication year only when it helps the reader. Handbook 5.108 allows a year after a reprinted book's title, as in Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1959. Penguin Books, 2017. For a later-collected essay, the Style Center uses Originally published at the end, as in the Stone 1964 Criticism reprint inside the 1990 Norton David Copperfield.
How do I cite a poem from an anthology in MLA?
Use the same anthology template. Short poems take quotation marks; a book-length poem takes italics. In the text, cite printed line numbers only when the copy prints them and the poem runs longer than a page. The poem-specific locator rules live on the MLA poem guide, not here.
Can I cite one chapter of a novel in MLA?
No, if you mean a chapter inside one novel. leftover-eighth-edition-banner on the chapter-in-authored-book post still says to create a works-cited-list entry only for the book and to name chapter titles in the prose, as the official Enjoe Self-Reference Engine example does. leftover-cite-work-within-a-work (16 September 2026) is different: a typically standalone novel later collected in another book, such as Butler's Adulthood Rites in Lilith's Brood, is cited as the novel plus the omnibus. The old Victor Frankenstein chapter example on this page was invented and is not a model.
How do I cite a novel that was later collected in an omnibus?
leftover-cite-work-within-a-work: treat the novel as the source and the omnibus as the container. The official 16 September 2026 example is Butler, Octavia E. Adulthood Rites. Lilith's Brood, by Butler, Grand Central Publishing, 2000, pp. 249–517. Repeat the last name after by so readers do not mistake the omnibus for a multi-author anthology.
How do I cite an anthology chapter I read online with a DOI?
Keep the print elements you have, name the platform as a second container, and end with https://doi.org/ plus the identifier. The official pair is Lewalski on Oxford Handbooks Online and Bould, Mark. "Speculative Fiction." The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction, edited by Joshua Miller, Cambridge UP, 2021, pp. 63–78. Cambridge Core, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974288.005. leftover-doi-and-url-https-10 and leftover-doi-and-url-https-doi-colon are not forms to copy.
Do I include the edition and volume of a Norton anthology?
Yes, when the title page prints them. Page numbers are edition-specific. The official Milton entries keep 4th ed., vol. 1, and the 1979 year. Dropping those facts makes the pages unrecoverable.
I found the essay in a Gale database that says it was first published in 1933. Which year do I cite?
Cite the anthology-in-the-database version you opened. The Style Center's Porterfield model keeps Gale 2008 and Literary Sources, then adds Originally published in Germanic Review, 1933, only as an optional slot. Do not pretend you held the 1933 issue.