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a book or other collection of selected writings by various authors, usually in the same literary form, of the same period, or on the same subject:
an anthology of Elizabethan drama; an anthology of modern philosophy.
a collection of selected writings by one author.
Contemporary Examples

On first encounter, the Romanians’ anthology felt like a wonderful one-liner.
LIVE SEXXX with Jeff Koons Blake Gopnik June 4, 2013

Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese poet best known to readers here for his 1923 book The Prophet, begins the anthology.
Literature’s Clash of Civilizations Oscar Villalon November 16, 2010

The strength of this anthology is that it gives us an idea of what is European in the broadest possible sense.
Do National Writers Still Exist? Colum McCann November 27, 2010

Davis is 97 years old, the only one of the 14 authors with stories in the anthology who is still alive.
The Original Gone Girls: Dorothy Salisbury Davis and Other Forgotten Pioneers of Crime Fiction Sarah Weinman August 26, 2013

Her most recent book, Reality Matters , is an anthology of essays that she edited about reality shows.
Pimping Out the Jersey Shore Anna David July 25, 2010

Historical Examples

If one were to compile an anthology of the world’s best twenty stories, this story would be among them.
The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Various

Selections from these, arranged in chronological order, appear in this anthology.
Tudor and Stuart Love Songs Various

These have been collected into the “Greek anthology;” but the greater part of them are contemptible in a poetic point of view.
The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III Various

For these reasons we have admitted few punning epigrams into this anthology, and those only as examples of a faulty kind.
An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams Pierre Nicole

With a sigh Missy put the pad and pencil in the anthology, laid the whole on the bench, and obediently went to mind the Baby.
Missy Dana Gatlin

noun (pl) -gies
a collection of literary passages or works, esp poems, by various authors
any printed collection of literary pieces, songs, works of art, etc
n.

1630s, “collection of poetry,” from Latin anthologia, from Greek anthologia “collection of small poems and epigrams by several authors,” literally “flower-gathering,” from anthos “a flower” (see anther) + logia “collection, collecting,” from legein “gather” (see lecture (n.)). Modern sense (which emerged in Late Greek) is metaphoric, “flowers” of verse, small poems by various writers gathered together.