As an English major you have to buy a lot of books, which I'm not complaining about. If your school is like mine you probably had to buy a certain assortment of books for an Intro to English class (which was just about the worst experience ever). So I thought today I would make a list of the books that I think all English major's actually need, and really any major that is writing a lot.
1. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 7th Edition answers any question you will ever have about where to place a comma, or how to use semicolons. High school AP Composition did not really prepare me for the kind of writing I have to do in college and some things have always baffled me, ever since I learned how to read and write. If you're like me, you learned how to read and write fairly early so you could fake everything you didn't know because teachers would always help the people that really needed it. Most schools require MLA anymore so it really is a useful book; I've used it in any class I've had to write a paper.
2. On Writing Well by William Zinsser is a classic. If you haven't heard about this book yet then you are truly missing out. I was introduced to this book in high school when my AP Composition teacher would read it out loud to us a couple times a week. Like the MLA Handbook, it will answer all of your questions, but these are different kinds of questions. It focuses more on voice and style than mechanics (although sometimes it does talk about mechanics).
3. Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Okay, I LOVE this book. The other two I've mentioned thus far are important, but buy this book if only because you love English. I have used this book occasionally when a professor continuously uses a word I do not know (like synecdoche) and I have also used it when writing papers to describe what I'm writing about. This is so much better than a dictionary. For example, synecdoche is not even in my Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, but Bedford has half a page about it including a definition, comparisons to other words, and several examples of what is and is not synecdoche. So basically, this book is a must have.
4. Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors, Volumes A&B was my first real English major required purchase, and it was a pricey one. I didn't sell back these books for two reasons. The first is that I liked a lot of the material in them, and figured it would be better to keep them for that than to sell them and have to buy lots of other books to get the same things. The second reason is that my teachers require me to print of poems, stories, and essays a lot. If I have the poem, story, or essay already, I do not have to do that. Volume A covers the Middle Ages through the 18th Century, Volume B covers the Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century and after. That is a lot of territory.
5. The Holy Bible King James Version: King James Version Economy. No matter what your stance on religion is, you need a Bible if you are an English major. The bible is probably the most referenced thing in English literature (Shakespeare is close) and if you do not know the Bible by heart than you will need this. Even if you're not interested in Christianity the Bible can still be a good read, and you should read it because it will help you understand so much of what you're learning.
I of course did not include a dictionary on here because I thought that was self explanatory. Are there any other books I missed?