Emily Dickinson

nearly 1,800

Only about ten appeared in her lifetime: anonymously and smoothed over by editors.

💡 Did you know? Of Dickinson's nearly 1,800 poems, only a handful were printed in her lifetime, mostly anonymously and heavily altered.

Amherst

The family house, the 'Homestead', is now the Emily Dickinson Museum.

💡 Did you know? Dickinson hardly ever left her home town of Amherst: her vast inner world unfolded within the narrowest outer confines.

her seclusion

She often received visitors only through a door left ajar: the neighbours called her 'the Myth of Amherst'.

💡 Did you know? In her last years Dickinson rarely left her room and sometimes spoke to visitors only through a half-open door.

white

Her surviving white dress is the most famous exhibit of the Dickinson Museum.

💡 Did you know? In later life Dickinson dressed almost only in white; the reason for this habit is still unexplained.

dashes

Plus idiosyncratic capitalisation and slant rhymes: early editors 'corrected' all of it away.

💡 Did you know? Dickinson's distinctive dashes and unusual capitalisation were „smoothed out“ by early editors: only later was the original restored.

titles

To this day they are cited by first line or by the numbers of the complete editions.

💡 Did you know? Almost all her poems are untitled and are therefore cited by their first line.

hope

'Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul': one of her most quoted images.

💡 Did you know? „Hope is the thing with feathers“: so begins one of Dickinson's most famous poems.

Death

'Because I could not stop for Death (He kindly stopped for me') the carriage ride passes school and grain field on the way to eternity.

💡 Did you know? In „Because I could not stop for Death“, Death politely stops his carriage like a gentleman: one of the most famous poems on mortality.

in hand-sewn booklets

Her sister Lavinia found about 40 fascicles in a chest after her death.

💡 Did you know? Dickinson sewed her poems by hand into little booklets („fascicles“) and hid them: no one guessed the scale of her work.

her sister Lavinia

Emily had wished her papers burned: Lavinia saved the poems and pushed for publication.

💡 Did you know? After Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister Lavinia found a chest full of poems and pushed through their publication against all resistance.

1955

Thomas H. Johnson restored the dashes and original spelling: almost 70 years after her death.

💡 Did you know? Only in 1955 (almost 70 years after her death) did a complete edition appear that finally preserved Dickinson's idiosyncratic punctuation unaltered.

Walt Whitman

Two opposite poles: his expansive free verse, her compressed miniatures: both revolutionised poetry.

💡 Did you know? Alongside Walt Whitman, the reclusive Dickinson is regarded as a founder of modern American poetry: two utterly contrasting pioneers.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was a US poet whose roughly 1,800 terse, bold poems made her a founder of modern American poetry.

💡 Did you know? In her lifetime she remained almost unknown: her vast body of work was discovered only after her death, in a chest.