Emily Dickinson

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Lore & Background

Emily Dickinson was born at the family's homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830, into a prominent, but not wealthy, family. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer in Amherst and a trustee of Amherst College. Her mother was Emily Norcross from Monson, Massachusetts. Dickinson had two siblings: William Austin (1829–1895), known as Austin, and Lavinia Norcross (1833–1899), known as Lavinia or Vinnie. Dickinson described her mother as 'an awful Mother, but I liked her better than none.' She attended primary school on Pleasant Street and started at Amherst Academy on September 7, 1840, alongside her sister Lavinia. The school had opened to female students just two years earlier. Dickinson spent seven years at the academy, taking classes in English and classical literature, Latin, botany, geology, history, 'mental philosophy,' and arithmetic. The principal, Daniel Taggart Fiske, later recalled that Dickinson was 'very bright' and 'an excellent scholar, of exemplary deportment, faithful in all school duties.' She was troubled from a young age by death—when her second cousin Sophia Holland died of typhus in April 1844, Dickinson was traumatized, writing that 'it seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even look at her face.' She became so melancholic that her parents sent her to stay with family in Boston to recover. After finishing her final term at the Academy on August 10, 1847, Dickinson attended Mary Lyon's Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for only ten months. Her brother Austin appeared on March 25, 1848, to 'bring [her] home at all events.' Back in Amherst, she took up baking and enjoyed local events. Dickinson was a prolific writer, composing nearly 1,800 poems, but only 10 were published during her lifetime. Her poetry primarily deals with nature and mortality, using short acerbic lines, lean descriptions, and slant or off-rhyme. Few in her circle were aware of her writing until after her death, when her younger sister Lavinia discovered the poems in her desk. At least eleven of Dickinson's poems were dedicated to her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson. Some scholars believe censorship helped to obscure the nature of Emily and Susan's relationship, which has been interpreted as romantic.

Reader's Guide

Dickinson's work was first published as a selection in 1890, edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, but the poems were significantly altered to fit the prevailing poetic conventions of the time. Not until 1955, when Thomas H. Johnson compiled a complete collection of her poetry, *The Poems of Emily Dickinson*, was Dickinson's work restored closer to her original intention. Her collection garnered wide recognition for its innovation. Today her poems are widely regarded as groundbreaking, and the Poetry Foundation notes she 'created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized.' Her legacy rests on the posthumous discovery and restoration of her nearly 1,800 poems, which have become canonical in American literature.

Did You Know?

• Only 10 of Dickinson's nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime.
• Her younger sister Lavinia discovered the poems in her desk after her death.
• Dickinson attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for only ten months before her brother brought her home.
• At least eleven of her poems were dedicated to her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson.
• Her poems were first published in 1890, but were significantly altered to fit the poetic conventions of the time.