Tags
19th century literature, American Literature, Amherst Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson, Poetry, Women Writers
Today is the birth date of Emily Dickinson [December 10, 1830 – May 18, 1886] born in Amherst Massachusetts. Her life was one of contemplation and increased seclusion. A prolific writer, only a few of her poems were actually published in her lifetime; the nearly 1800 poems and 1000 letters that survive were published posthumously. A small collection of her poems was first published in 1890 [Roberts Brothers], edited by Mabel Loomis Todd; a second series in 1891. Mabel Loomis Todd also published the letters in 2 volumes in 1894. Due to family disagreements, the complete poems were not published until 1955, edited by Thomas Johnson; and the letters in 1958, also edited by Johnson. The biography by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Emily Dickinson [Knopf, 1986] is a treasure, complete with notes and bibliography.
Some web resources:
- The Emily Dickinson International Society; and its Emily Dickinson Journal at Project Muse, published by Johns Hopkins University Press
- The Emily Dickinson Collection at the Jones Library in Amherst Massachusetts which houses about 7,000 items ~ poems, letters, ephemera
- Emily Dickinson archive at the Poetry Foundation site
- The Emily Dickinson Page by Donna M. Campbell at Washington State University has extensive bibliographies, links to other resources
- The Emily Dickonson Lexicon at Brigham Young University
- Emily Dickinson Museum: the Homestead & The Evergreens
- About.com ~ Women’s History
- The Quotations Page: “Forever is composed of nows”
- a January 1913 Atlantic Monthly article by Martha Hale Shackford on “The Poetry of Emily Dickinson,” an early review of her work
- the Emily Dickinson Stamp was issued by the USPS on August 28, 1971: click here for the the Mount Holyoke College Collection of the various “First Day of Issue” covers that were stamped on this date in Amherst, Massachusetts
- Her obituary in the Springfield Republican, May 18, 1886
A few new books on Dickinson, perfect for holiday giving:
Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium, [Belknap Press, 2006]
White Heat: Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson, by Brenda Wineapple [Knopf, 2008]
A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Thomas Johnson Heade, by Christopher Benfey [Penguin Press, 2008]
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