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Emily Dickinson

Born: December 10, 1830 // Died: May 15, 1886

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830, the second of three children of Edward and Emily (Norcross) Dickinson.

With the passing of time, Dickinson's social life began to be carried on less through personal contact than through correspondence. Her letters, like her poems, display a witty and constantly stimulated mind expressing itself in effortlessly fresh and inventive turns of phrase. As she matured, she became increasingly aware of the gap between herself and her family in intellectual and religious attitudes. Hers was a profoundly religious sensibility, but not at all a conventional one. She caused something of a stir as a young woman by her refusal to accept the God of her parents. Accepting things as they were, or as the majority of people saw them, was never quite her style.

After Emily's death, her sister Lavinia discovered the manuscripts of more than one thousand poems in Emily's bedroom, and enlisted Mabel Todd's help in seeking their publication. In cooperation with Higginson, Todd prepared three substantial volumes of poems for the press, although the texts were rather heavily edited, rewritten to make them more palatable to traditional expectations of rhyme, meter, and diction.

It was not until 1955, a century and a quarter after the poet's birth, that all of Emily Dickinson's poems were published together in one edition, transcribed directly from her own manuscripts and printed exactly as she had written them, without editorial "improvements." Two books--Ancestors' Brocades (1945) by Millicent Todd Bingham, the daughter of Mabel Loomis Todd, and The Editing of Emily Dickinson (1967) by R. W. Franklin--recount the absorbing literary and human drama of Dickinson's publication history.

Emily Dickinson's Poetry: (click on a title to read a poem)
- The Bustle in a House	- "Hope" is the Thing with...	- I Never Hear the Word...
- It Was Not Death, For I...	- Little East of Jordan	- Wild Nights-Wild Nights!
- I'm Nobody? Who Are You?	- Because I Could Not Stop...	- Success
- There's a Certian Slant...	- A Narrow Fellow in the...	- Lost

Dickinson Collection, MS 7, Houghton Library, Harvard University Library; facsimile in The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in two volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press). Copyright Permission: by the Curator of Manuscripts and Special Collections, Houghton Library, Harvard University Library.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA): I, 222. First Publication Date: 1891.

Poems (1890-1896) by Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Reproduction of the Original Volumes Issued in 1890, 1891, and 1896, with an Introduction by George Monteiro (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles). First Publication Date: 1861.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA): II, 1151 (set 6c). First Publication Date: 1890.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA): I, 264 (fascicle 13). First Publication Date: 1891.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA): I, 100 (fascicle 6). First Publication Date: 1891.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA): I, 367-68 (fascicle 17). First Publication Date: 1891.