The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson proved that brevity can be beautiful. Only now is her complete oeuvre–all 1,775 poems–available in its original form, uncorrupted by editorial revision, in one volume. Thomas H. Johnson, a longtime Dickinson scholar, arranged the poems in chronological order as far as could be ascertained (the dates for more than 100 are unknown). This organization allows a wide-angle view of Dickinson’s poetic development, from the sometimes-clunky rhyme schemes of her juvenilia, including valentines she wrote in the early 1850s, to the gloomy, hell-obsessed writings from her last years. Quite a difference from requisite Dickinson entries in literary anthologies: “There’s a certain Slant of light,” “Wild Nights–Wild Nights!” and “I taste a liquor never brewed.”

The book was compiled from Thomas H. Johnson’s hard-to-find variorum from 1955. While some explanatory notes would have been helpful, it’s a prodigious collection, showcasing Dickinson’s intractable obsession with nature, including death. Poem 1732, which alludes to the deaths of her father and a onetime suitor, illustrates her talent:

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

The musicality of her punctuation and the outright elegance of her style–akin to Christina Rossetti’s hymns, although not nearly so religious–rescue the poems from their occasional abstruseness. The Complete Poems is especially refreshing because Dickinson didn’t write for publication; only 11 of her verses appeared in magazines during her lifetime, and she had long-resigned herself to anonymity, or a “Barefoot-Rank,” as she phrased it. This is the perfect volume for readers wishing to explore the works of one of America’s first poets.
Complete is the keyword here as this is the only edition currently available that contains all of Dickinson’s poems. The works were originally gathered by editor Johnson and published in a three-volume set in 1955. Essential for academic and public libraries.

Nearly everyone who’s had a brush with American lit knows the story of Emily Dickinson - her poetry unpublished in her lifetime, and then even after her death, her verses seeing the light of day only after having been “improved” on by an editor who found her rhymes imperfect and her meter “spasmodic.” He even went so far as to make her metaphors “sensible.” The fact is, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to whom Dickinson had sent her poems, was a representative of the poetic establishment, and as with all artistic establishments then and now, was too rigid in his thinking and too impoverished in his imagination to comprehend a new voice of genius. As Editor Thomas H. Johnson writes in his terse but very instructive Introduction, “He was trying to measure a cube by the rules of plane geometry.”

Of course other women of literature suffered something similar during the nineteenth century. What I wonder is, who is being misread, ignored or denied today?

Anyway, suffice it to say that this IS the definitive one-volume collection of the poetry of Emily Dickinson. It includes all the 1,775 poems that she wrote in her lifetime, and they are presented here just as she wrote them with only some minor corrections of obvious misspellings or misplaced apostrophes. Johnson has retained the sometimes “capricious” capitalization, and preserved the famous dashes.

There is a subject index, which I found useful, and an index of first lines, which is invaluable.

Dickinson can be playful…

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise - you know!

…she can be sarcastic…

“Faith” is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see -
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.

[Alas, the Amazon.com editor does not support italics. The words "see" and "Microscopes" are italicized above, and it really does make a difference!]

…and grave…

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

…and observant…

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it’s true -
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe -

…and profound…

Love reckons by itself - alone -
“As large as I” - relate the Sun
to One who never felt it blaze -
Itself is all the like it has -

..and desperate…

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

…and self aware…

I meant to have but modest needs -
Such as Content - and Heaven -
Within my income - these could lie
And Life and I - keep even -

…and even radical…

Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you’re straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -

…and much more.

She is a poet of strikingly apt and totally original phrases imbued with a deep resonance of thought and observation, especially on her favorite subjects, life, death and love. She can be cryptic and her references and allusions are sometimes too private for us to catch. She can also be amazingly terse. But the intensity of her experience and the “Zero at the Bone” emotion displayed in this, her “letter to the World/That never wrote to me -” are second to none in the world of letters. Unlike Shakespeare, who mastered the psychology of people in places high and low, Dickinson mastered only her own psychology, and yet through that we can see, as in a mirror, ourselves.

I can’t think of “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” as simply a volume of poetry. Rather, it seems to me to be the uninhibited testament of a latter-day prophetess; it reads like the visions of a rare mind who pierced through the prisons of convention, and who dared to record what she perceived.

Forget any preconceptions you may have had about Dickinson, and start reading the book. As a whole, this collection is a stunning exploration of many themes and images: the world of nature, metaphysics, human emotion, and more. And throughout, these short verses radiate with psychological insight.

And if you read with the attentiveness that these poems deserve, you will discover many treasures. I have been a particular fan of Dickinson’s “blasphemous” verses, in which she deconstructs the conventions of mainstream religiosity, and of her erotic poems, which celebrate the sensuous delights of the human and nonhuman worlds. Check out such gems as #324 (”Some keep the Sabbath going to Church– / I keep it, staying at Home”) or #339 (”My Cactus–splits her Beard / To show her throat”). Dickinson is full of surprises, all written in a style that is stunning and subtly seductive.

Dickinson writes, “Exhilaration–is within– / There can no Outer Wine / So royally intoxicate / As that diviner Brand” (#383). But if you must rely on an “Outer Wine,” dip into the “Complete Poems” and get high on Emily. It’s an addiction that’s good for you.

I have 1000 words to tell what Dickinson means to me, an impossible task I gladly take up. I’d like to respond to others on this page. I once called Dickinson the “patron saint of lonely people everywhere,” so I can identify with what one person said about teenage shut-ins. And I don’t blame the person who snubbed her for not leaving a name–I’d be embarrassed to as well. Emily egotistical? The poet who wrote, “I’m nobody”? Wow. I love Dickinson’s work so much because her vision of life is so fully her own, so at odds with the views of those around her. Can you imagine knowing you are the most brilliant lyric poet of your time (Whitman was more an epic or narrative poet), and knowing no one understood you? It’s like trying to communicate in a foreign language that only you know. In fact, that is exactly what she did–she explodes the syntax, vocabulary, and syllabication of English and transforms it into her own private means of communication. She demands that we meet her on her ground. True, reading her work is not “fun”–there’s too much pain and burning beauty in it to be an easy ride. She is not for everyone–only for those who see that life’s disappointments both destroy and liberate us at the same time: comparing human hurts to trees destroyed by nature’s forces, she says (in poem 314), “We–who have the Souls– / Die oftener–Not so vitally–.” Those may be the finest lines any poet ever wrote in English.

Dickinson is probably the one poet who best personifies mood, emotion, fears, hopes, dreams, and time and eternity with such few words and in the most illustrative way. Most of her subjects are ones we readily identify with–love, death, nature, religion, passage of time. Her ability to make so much out of so little is truly a gift, and, while her poetry can be a little hard to grasp at first, it is quite powerful if you pursue it. For this reason this volume of her poems is a treasure for anyone who loves poetry, or the power of its message.

Many of her poems have an ironic twist to them, or a paradoxical message. Consider the few first lines of “The soul unto itself”, where the dual nature of the soul–good and bad–is explored:

“The soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend–
Or the most agonizing spy
An enemy could send…”

Another one of her poems, “Each life converges to some center” evokes the idea that we are part of some bigger plan in the universe. She clearly has a knack for taking the reader along on the journey in the poem, and feeling its magnitude along with the speaker.

In “The Future never spoke,” Dickinson personifies the future as indifferent and unpredictable, a mysterious entity that has a will of its own:

“The Future never spoke,
Nor will he, like the Dumb,
Reveal by sign or syllable
Or his profound to Come..”

The power of Dickinson’s words come to life in this book, and this is one of the best collections out there of her poems. There are also many of her more popular ones, such as “I’m Nobody”, where she blasts the notion of having achievements publicized and being popular and “Because I could not stop for Death”, where the speaker is taken on a journey through time by Death. Over all this is a powerful collection that no literature teacher should be without. Great for anyone though, and, if you aren’t a poetry fan, try this one out and maybe you’ll be one.

Definitely recommended!

One of my favorite poets since being assigned “I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose” in eighth grade, Dickinson has always struck a chord within me. Despite having lived over a century prior, the feelings and ideas expressed within her work are just as relevant today as ever.

The sparse beauty of Dickinson’s words can both evoke loneliness and the certainty that the poet shares your pain. Her topics encompass everything from death to literature to the soul; and her mood is often somber, but also very often playful.

This particular collection is a volume I had to purchase for a graduate course on Dickinson I once took — and it is one of the very few texts I never wanted to sell back! Margins are wide, allowing for ample underlinings and notations as readers peruse and mull the verses. At the rear is an index of first lines, in alphabetical order, to allow for easier location of particular works. This volume also preserves Dickinson’s tendency to use dashes, which was often “corrected” in past versions — also contributing greatly to the readers’ ability to fully appreciate Dickinson’s legacy.

“Your thoughts don’t have words every day…” But, oh, how skilled was Emily Dickinson at finding words to match her thoughts. And what intriguing thoughts they were - clever, insightful, playful, impassioned, meticulous… Whether describing life from the point of view of a bee or pondering the ravages of death, Dickinson was unique in her approach to her work and the world she saw around her. One of her poetic gifts was finding ways to express profound thoughts through brevity.

Most of us are exposed to Dickinson only through the most publicized and commercialized selections of her work. This complete compilation offers us a chance to see Dickinson in her entirety and find the many treasures that have not been exposed to the masses. I first really discovered Dickinson in college, and I clung to a paperback of her complete works for years and was happy to at last be able to replace it with a more durable hardback. Not only are we treated to her life’s work here, but in some cases we get different drafts of a single poem - giving us a window into the development of her thoughts. Crack open the cover, and it is as if we have been allowed to wander unsupervised into Emily’s room and peruse her papers. And we discover how true the poet’s own words can be:

“A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.”

Under a surface of innocence, Emily Dickinson’s witty, acerbic, playful & profound poems are America’s wisest contribution to poetry. Sometimes she riddles, sometimes she puns–she puns not only in ambiguous word choice, but also in ideas and topics. Her small gems are the unique response of genius to the world, a dialogue on the most inspiring level–and from a given woman’s experience, too. But I think Dickinson surpasses the merely human–she was sent from another planet to rescue us from Whitmanesque excesses.

Pretty much an autodidact at poetry (thus having utterly no pretense to credentials with which to browbeat those with different views) I’ve come to regard Emily as one of the very best poets of all time and, among other things, one of the very best of Christian theologians. Notwithstanding what various far better credentialed experts have pronounced to the contrary, Emily was indeed a Christian, though quite solitary, mystical, and hardly conventional. Take for example (J) 823:

Not that We did, shall be the test
When Act and Will are done
But what Our Lord infers We would
Had We diviner been –

Is this not an exquisite (and ultra-polysemic) four line sermon on discipleship, grace, incarnation, and judgment/salvation?

Very few have written of the soul as profoundly, beautifully,and economically as Emily. Plato would have marvelled at this girl.

Whoever first referred to her as a “nun” described her much better than many moderns who seem preoccupied with her secret loves and lovers, sexual preferences, etc. See No. 817 for example.

To decode Emily, I bought the Noah Webster 1823 American English Dictionary. It along with the Bible, the poetry of George Herbert, and the classical writers and philosophers are, for me, essential to filling in the various matrices of meaning that are her poems. Even then, many poems remain obscure and one must fortuitously discover tidbits from history, (then) current events, etc. to occasionally render them comprehensible. Understanding Emily could take a lifetime of work and pleasure.

This edition is great because it is essentially faithful to how Emily actually recorded her poems. With her, as everyone knows, the seemingly eccentric punctuation, capital letters, and other quirks are significant.

Emily Dickinson was a wonderful poet along with Poe…Her poems were mostly about depression, and death. Althought her poems werent found till after she died she still wrote beautiful poems that just want to make you cry.

here is a voice undimmed. A voice so rare it’s no wonder that the life lived behind it was as it was. Perfect voice, perfect life. Like others here, I too see there’s no need to “review” a thing like Emily. I merely take this opportunity in this new medium to state that Emily lived in Gnosis…this is her mysterious subject. Here is where she becomes seemingly impenetrable…until you know her terms and her Terms, and then–she stands revealed as the Mystic she was and is.

There’s no need for me to comment on Emily Dickinson, or her phenomenal poetry that is the content of this book. It will speak for itself. What I will comment on is the authenticity of this book compared to others in that this book preserves Emily’s poetry the way it was, with all the “mad” dashes, to convey the uncontainable element within her that she was only able to release through her poetry. The author is the primary researcher of Emily’s poems and has thoroughly researched the world to compile the collection pretty much as the world knows it, and he has presented it in this book in full. If you are to have a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, it should be this one. No questions about it!

Emily Dickinson, who lived from 1830 to 1886, is to me the symbol of a poet with a unique and distinctive voice, a voice that seemed strange to her contemporaries but that gradually came to be recognized and cherished by lovers of poetry everywhere.

She led a life withdrawn from the world and, in some ways, reality as most of us know it, for she lived mainly in her imagination. She found no recognition in her day and only six of her poems were published, all modified and conventional-ized by the editors to suit their readers, who liked old-fashioned verse and were not appreciative of new styles and innovative forms. But that didn’t seem to bother Dickinson too much. In fact, she didn’t even seem to take too much pride in her talent, even if she knew the full extent of it. For one thing, she kept it very private, except with a few correspondents. In fact, her poetry wasn’t even discovered until after her death. Her sister went through her belongings in her room and found the many, many loose scraps of paper covered with poems that had been written down through the decades by Dickinson. So, although she was never to attain fame and success in her lifetime (”fame is a bee. / It has a song– / It has a sting– / Ah, too, it has a wing”), she eventually had to settle for “fame of the mind”–recognition of her talent in her own mind. It was for posterity to discover her. That didn’t take long. Her first collection was put out only a short 4 years after her death.

The specific reason why so little of her poetry found its way in print while she was still alive was, largely, because her use of metre, punctuation, and rhyme was so irregular and unusual. Editors mistook her offbeat application of these elements as flaws of “technical imperfections”. They did not understand that these “imperfections” were not mistakes at all on her part, but rather, poetic experimentations. But their error can be well understood, of course, when one realizes that what Emily Dickinson was doing was something they just had not seen attempted, by anyone. Even Walt Whitman, another highly experimental American poet of the time, was doing something completely different from her poetry. But like his poetry, hers too was considered uncontrolled and eccentric. It seemed to follow no set of rules for verse in a time when poetry had very clearly defined rules of composition.

Times have completely changed and poets today enjoy the fredom of unlimited expression. No longer are there any set rules for this or that, and all styles, forms and uses of punctuation (or lack of) are acceptable. In fact, newness and innovation are now considered a plus, all thanks to true and pioneering originals like Emily Dickinson.

David Rehak
author of “Poems From My Bleeding Heart”

So, here’s the deal, boys and girls. There are two versions of the reading edition of Emily Dickinson’s poems that are usable. And by usable, I mean that the texts (note the work “texts”) are what Emily Dickinson wanted the texts to be. The first version is, as I read the description of the volume in question, is the Thomas H. Johnson text. Now, friends, (excuse me if I seem patronizing, but as a Dickinson scholar, long of tooth, and weary of stupidity, I have my prejudices), Johnson’s text has been a fully acceptable and competent version since it was published as the authoritative Dickinson in 1955 (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press issued the variorum, three volume version of all the authoritative poems in the same year.) This is cool. The newest version of Emily Dickinson poems was edited by R.W. Franklin, and the readers’ edition was published in 1999. There is also a new variorum edition published by Belknap Press of Harvard and edited by Franklin. So. I am boring you with all of this detail to tell you that the Johnson texts are good texts. If you are serious about Dickinson–meaning if you actually care about what she wrote on the page–the Johnson and the Franklin will give accurate texts. F.W. Franklin has been working on details where Johnson lacked insight since the ’60’s. He knows whereof he speaks, and he has done his utmost to reassemble Ms. Dickinson’s original manuscripts in their proper order. Previous versions of the poems–those before Johnson and Franklin–regularized rhyme and otherwise abrogated the accuracy of the poems. They were cleaned up according to late 19th century standards, and the texts–despite editorial comments to the contrary–are corrupt. That means that they are inaccurate. So, dear friends, if you want Emily Dickinson with accuracy–despite the rapturous testimony of some reviewers–go for the Johnson or Franklin texts. The others are mostly fraudulent. And in case you actually care, my credentials are respectable, and I don’t work for a publisher. Use Johnson if you have him with confidence. Franklin is most current and should be impeccable. Other texts, including some that are in supposedly respectable American literature anthologies, may be suspect. (One of the most respectable uses texts that derive from late 19th century texts that were declared corrupt some 40 years ago.) So–hope this is of some use.

I often thought I “knew” Emily in a personal way, though I knew that couldn’t really be possible, her being dead and all. Still, I felt there was a connection and later, when I was working as a tarot card reader on Church Street in San Francisco I often met people in the course of a day who were sympathetic to this viewpoint. Of course, I wasn’t doing much of a good job as a tarot card reader if I was telling people _my_ fantasies, so I quit and got my PhD studying–you got it–Emily Dickinson herself. Well, this is one heck of a book. From the familiar to the obscure, from the ridiculous to the sublime, this book hits a home run and doesn’t miss a base as it jogs around the old sandlot diamond. The familiar ones are like old friends, of course, but every now and then there’s a rare gem. I’d like to share this:

I’d Like to Get Out of this G-d D-mned F-cking Room

It’d be a big help
if I could get out of here for
just a minute.
What a bore this town can be.

They say, “Hey, it’s grist for the
old artistic mill,
Emily.”
I say–”What total b-llsh-t.”
So let me out of here.
I always wanted to give copywriting
a try.
Let me be known as the Belle of
Madison Avenue for a change, already.
Screw this.

How I miss that woman.

Emily Dickinson is easily my favorite poet. It was unfortunate that she was essentially undiscovered during her lifetime. This may remind us of one of her poems:

—– 441

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me –
The simple News that Nature told –
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see –
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen –
Judge tenderly — of Me

—–

However, I think this poem is a more likely biography and more personal poem:

—– 404

How many Flowers fail in Wood –
Or perish from the Hill –
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful –

How many cast a nameless Pod
Upon the nearest Breeze –
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight –
It bear to Other Eyes –

—–

There are 1775 poems in all, but the following poem is my favorite. It is also on display in her house in Amherst (MA) in various renditions. Make sure to visit there if you are ever in the area.

—– 67

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated — dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

—–

There are so many fantastic poems that I wish I could list them all. I did type them all (!) in once for my personal use and that has been of great benefit. However, I still keep this book that is marked with my own notes. A real treasure.

The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition by Emily Dickinson and R. W. Franklin

This is now the definitive text of Dickinson, a poet one can open at random and find something exhilarating. (The Guardian )

Mr. Franklin is the recognized authority on Emily Dickinson’s poetry and gives us 1,789 poems, the largest and most accurate collection of her verse…For all those who love Emily Dickinson’s unique verse this is a treasure trove from which to choose. This is a publishing coup of the first order. (Contemporary Review )

Not only is it the ‘authoritative’ and ‘definitive’ edition of her complete poems, it is a gorgeous volume printed by the Belknap Press, complete with a crimson ribbon bookmark…For those who like Emily Dickinson and who want all the poems as she wrote them, unmolested by well-meaning editors and thoughtless publishers, this is the book. In one volume you can hold the closest thing to the real Dickinson that anyone will ever get. (bn.com )

Product Description

Emily Dickinson, poet of the interior life, imagined words/swords, hurling barbed syllables/piercing. Nothing about her adult appearance or habitation revealed such a militant soul. Only poems, written quietly in a room of her own, often hand-stitched in small volumes, then hidden in a drawer, revealed her true self. She did not live in time but in universals–an acute, sensitive nature reaching out boldly from self-referral to a wider, imagined world.

Dickinson died without fame; only a few poems were published in her lifetime. Her legacy was later rescued from her desk–an astonishing body of work, much of which has since appeared in piecemeal editions, sometimes with words altered by editors or publishers according to the fashion of the day.

Now Ralph Franklin, the foremost scholar of Dickinson’s manuscripts, has prepared an authoritative one-volume edition of all extant poems by Emily Dickinson–1,789 poems in all, the largest number ever assembled. This reading edition derives from his three-volume work, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (1998), which contains approximately 2,500 sources for the poems. In this one-volume edition, Franklin offers a single reading of each poem–usually the latest version of the entire poem–rendered with Dickinson’s spelling, punctuation, and capitalization intact. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition is a milestone in American literary scholarship and an indispensable addition to the personal library of poetry lovers everywhere.

If you know Dickinson’s compositional method — with almost no publication in her lifetime, often with many versions of one poem, and with poetic significance altered by the paper and exact handwriting — you will recognize that any printed edition of her work cannot be perfect. Still, Franklin has worked with care, intelligence, scholarship, and order on finding the best renditions of her poems, and these are those. If you learn to love her, you may want the hardback! Her “little” lyrics are a joy forever, and you may wear out your copy.

This piece was in better condition than I expected and I received for much cheaper than what my school’s bookstore was selling it for.

The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewall

Winner of the National Book Award, this massively detailed biography throws a light into the study of the brilliant poet. How did Emily Dickinson, from the small window over her desk, come to see a life that included the horror, exaltation and humor that lives her poetry? With abundance and impartiality, Sewall shows us not just the poet nor the poetry, but the woman and her life.

Review
[A] brilliant, massively detailed biography…Emily Dickinson emerges in these pages not only as…one of the two greatest poets of America’s nineteenth century, but as an extraordinary and credible human being…Sewall is an exemplary biographer and critic, perhaps in some ironic way the kind of friend Emily sought unsuccessfully in her life.
–Robert Kirsch (Los Angeles Times )

By far the best and the most complete study of the poet’s life yet to be written, the result of nearly twenty years of work…The story of a long-standing affair between Austin Dickinson and a woman twenty-seven years younger than he, Mabel Loomis Todd…has not appeared in print before, and it makes an entrancing tale…A plainly authoritative work.
–Richard Todd (Atlantic )

Richard Sewall’s biographical vision of Emily Dickinson is as complete as human scholarship, ingenuity, stylistic pungency, and common sense can arrive at.
–R. W. B. Lewis (New Republic )

Although Professor Sewall produces new material everywhere, it is in the account of the scandals that he has the most startling abundance, much of it in the form of primary documents…One must thank him for the fullness and impartiality of his presentation.
–Irvin Ehrenpreis (New York Review of Books )

THE LIFE OF EMILY DICKINSON. By Richard B. Sewall. 821 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press. First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 1994. ISBN 0-674-53080-2

Although I haven’t yet finished reading Richard B. Sewalls mammoth saga, I fully expect to one day, and I’ve certainly read enough to realize that this is the single most important biography of Dickinson that we have, and unlikely ever to be bettered.

One thing that strikes me is Sewall’s wonderful knack of bringing the various actors in this strange domestic drama vividly before us, and making them real and believable. The marvelous collection of illustrations in this book also help make the world of Amherst real to us.

The book is comprehensive and a mine of interesting facts about anything and everything to do with Emily Dickinson, and is happily free of the unctuousness of Thomas H. Johnson’s earlier biography. Besides being richly illustrated with an abundance of photographs, it is also well-written, incredibly well-researched, and is a pleasure to read, being well-printed on excellent smooth paper.

In other words, Sewall’s prize-winning biography is essential reading for all students of Dickinson, and is no doubt destined for a wide readership in its compact new paperback format which conveniently gives us Sewall’s two volumes in one.

There is a famous sketch by Henry Fuseli called “The artist moved by the grandeur of ancient ruins.” It shows a tiny mortal figure weeping beside the fragments of a colossal statue. The reader of Sewall’s life of Emily Dickinson will find himself in that mortal’s place.

This is a book to buy and keep and turn to again and again. Whenever you need to remind yourself what the English language can do, open a page at random and ED will show you. On her own confusion: “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” On youth: “when I was but an unsifted girl, and you so scholarly.” On Shakespearean partings: “I read them in the garret and the rafters wept.”

Sewall’s scholarship is impeccable, his writing graceful, his sympathy and critical engagement exemplary. If you don’t own any volumes of Dickinson’s poetry, this biography can serve as a “selected works” since it contains many of the poems and letters in their entirety. Don’t deny yourself the pleasure of possessing this book.

Professor Sewall spent about 20 years getting this massive and beautifully presented biography put together, and his scholarship, devotion, persistence and talent shine in every chapter. He used original source material, much of it for the first time anywhere. He describes the lives of many Dickinsons, ancestors and descendants, of the mysterious poet…and getting to know these people helps us comprehend her art and her life. This book came out about l974, and was the first to reveal the now-famous adultery of Emily’s brother Austin and Mable Loomis Todd, wife of the Amherst College astronomy professor. This doomed and illicit love lasted 13 years and was a key factor in how and when Emily’s poems got published. We didn’t get ALL of them until 69 years after the writer died, and Sewall’s book tells us why. Professor Sewall hews to common sense in examining Emily’s love life, her reclusiveness, and her probable sexual orientation. While he admits that abuse in childhood is possible as a factor in Emily’s later choices or limitations, he clearly shows that it is also improbable. I have depended on this work in my own E.D. researches over a 20-year period, and corresponded with the author on and off for about ten years, although I never met him. In my opinion, any study of Emily BEGINS with this book if one wants to do it right. Buy it before it finally goes out of print or you will be sorry. It is a complex and magnificent achievement.

The Gardens of Emily Dickinson by Judith Farr and Louise Carter

As Farr shows, Dickinson’s gardening and writing were intertwined enterprises, which both required a great deal of care.

Review
In this first major study of our beloved poet Dickinson’s devotion to gardening, Farr shows us that like poetry, gardening was her daily passion, her spiritual sustenance, and her literary inspiration…Rather than speaking generally about Dickinson’s gardening habits, as other articles on the subject have done, Farr immerses the reader in a stimulating and detailed discussion of the flowers Dickinson grew, collected, and eulogized…The result is an intimate study of Dickinson that invites readers to imagine the floral landscapes that she saw, both in and out of doors, and to re-create those landscapes by growing the same flowers (the final chapter is chock-full of practical gardening tips).
–Maria Kochis (Library Journal 20040715)

This is a beautiful book on heavy white paper with rich reproductions of Emily Dickinson’s favorite flowers, including sheets from the herbarium she kept as a young girl. But which came first, the flowers or the poems? So intertwined are Dickinson’s verses with her life in flowers that they seem to be the lens through which she saw the world. In her day (1830-86), many people spoke ‘the language of flowers.’ Judith Farr shows how closely the poet linked certain flowers with her few and beloved friends: jasmine with editor Samuel Bowles, Crown Imperial with Susan Gilbert, heliotrope with Judge Otis Lord and day lilies with her image of herself. The Belle of Amherst, Mass., spent most of her life on 14 acres behind her father’s house on Main Street. Her gardens were full of scented flowers and blossoming trees. She sent notes with nosegays and bouquets to neighbors instead of appearing in the flesh. Flowers were her messengers. Resisting digressions into the world of Dickinson scholarship, Farr stays true to her purpose, even offering a guide to the flowers the poet grew and how to replicate her gardens.
–Susan Salter Reynolds (Los Angeles Times 20040716)

If you want poetry and gardening of equal merit, turn to Emily Dickinson, whose gardens–poetic and herbaceous–are the subject of an attractive new book, The Gardens of Emily Dickinson, by Judith Farr. It includes a chapter on ‘Gardening with Emily Dickinson’ by Louise Carter. This book catches a constant tension in Dickinson’s life. An interesting, skillful gardener, she had a strong literal regard for the immediate world in which she gardened. And yet the garden in her poems is never just her garden. Nature serves her visionary passion. A dandelion demonstrates how ‘Winter instantly becomes/An infinite Alas.’ I suspect that as she passed among her flowers in Amherst they evaporated into the symbolic ether behind her. And yet, as Farr notes, Emily Dickinson had strong gardener’s hands.
–Verlyn Klinkenborg (New York Times Book Review 20041202)

Farr…shows that Dickinson’s use of flower imagery drew on first-hand experience in the garden and conservatory. She was a passionate gardener, ‘able to envision every season and flower at will,’ Farr writes, her gardening, like her poetry, ‘the manifestation of profound and even occasionally rebellious desire.’…For bringing us so close to Emily Dickinson–one can almost hear her breathing–The Gardens of Emily Dickinson deserves wide readership.
–Tom D’Evelyn (Providence Journal )

The reclusive poet’s garden, conservatory and the nearby woods were intimate theaters, entwined with her identity, requisite to her survival and her primary inspiration. Plants and flowers had souls and spoke to her; their lives and deaths were mystical events. In them, she found metaphors for beauty, truth, heaven and earth, and she wove them into poems she called ‘blossoms of the Brain.’ Dickinson scholar Judith Farr unravels the symbolism in Dickinson’s spare sensuous poetry and explores the influences of family, friends and Victorian culture on her work. The final chapter, by horticulturalist Louise Carter, describes plants surely and most likely grown by Dickinson, along with their care. (She loved heavily scented flowers and described herself as a ‘Lunatic on Bulbs.’) An engrossing read, illustrated with paintings, photographs and other images from the era.
–Lili Singer (Los Angeles Times )

Farr claims Dickinson was better known in her lifetime as a skilled gardener than as a poet. She grew native plants and more exotic imports, and she botanised in the woodlands and pastures surrounding her home. This is, of course, no news to Dickinson scholars, but the point cannot be stressed too often. Farr makes it emphatically by bringing together a wealth of material about Dickinson’s engagement with flowers. Her book, which is full of close readings, is likely to become the standard work on the subject. As Farr shows, Dickinson’s gardening and writing were intertwined enterprises, which both required a great deal of care.
–Madeleine Minson (Times Higher Education Supplement )

For the serious Dickinson lover, get The Gardens of Emily Dickinson by Judith Farr, an engrossing and serious biography with deep analysis of the floral themes in the poems.
–Carol Stocker (Boston Globe )
Emily Dickinson continues to fascinate the literary world, not only because of her unique, eerily beautiful poetry, but also because of the delicious mystery that cocoons her life well over one hundred years after her death. Some have painted her as a looney eccentric, some as a recluse shrouded in sexual ecstasy: she has been seen on theatre stages throughout the world as the Belle of Amherst, and her works have been incorporated into songs and symphonies - the most poignant being John Adams’ “Harmonium”.

Yet few investigators have the quaint, informed pique as the highly admired Dickinson scholar, Judith Farr. This book THE GARDENS OF EMILY DICKINSON maintains the level of biographic study that began with her THE PASSION OF EMILY DICKINSON in 1994 and continued with the elegant, aptly eccentric epistolary novel I NEVER CAME TO YOU IN WHITE in 1996. Like the previous books, Farr does not confine her writing to academia (though she obviously has consumed every bit of available information on her subject and footnoted these books extensively): Farr prefers to open doors and windows of imagination to make the factual data supplied have a semblance to the radiance of Dickinson’s gifts to posterity.

During Emily Dickinson’s lifetime (1830 - 1886) the poet was better know for her commitment to the oh-so-proper Victorian art of gardening. Books on Botany from that period held dominion over reading tables and bookshelves and Dickinson was as astute a garden scholar as the best of them. Flowers are frequently referenced in her poetry, her letters, her life, and Farr has used this other half of Dickinson’s life as a means to explore the meanings of her poems. ‘Flowers - Well - if anybody/Can extasy define -/Half a transport - half a trouble -/With which flowers humble men:…’ She divides her writings into chapters ‘Gardening in Eden’ (the more spiritual aspect of the garden), ‘The Woodland Garden’ (the exploration of her natural garden on the grounds of the Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts), ‘The Enclosed Garden’ (the conservatory where exotic looms were coddled), and ‘The Garden in the Brain’. In each of these chapters Farr takes almost every reference to flowers in Dickinson’s poems and discusses their significance both herbally and philosophically and passionately. The characters that played significant roles in Dickinson’s odd life are all addressed (Susan Dickinson, Bowles, Higginson, etc) by referencing letters to and poems about each , and each bit of evidence breathes floral dimensions. Almost as an intermission to this theatrical diversion, Farr has placed a chapter by Louise Carter “Gardening with Emily Dickinson” which is well written and serves to ground the ongoing growing tales of the Belle of Amherst with a sophisticated diversion on the techniques of the Victorian Gardener - a chapter which could easily find its way into all Garden books! And aptly, in a manner that would no doubt find Dickinson’s approval, Farr ends her book with an Epilogue, which indeed places all of her information in perspective and is enlightening to both the scholar and the occasional reader of the Poetry of Emily Dickinson. Judith Farr is a solid scholar, a fine writer, and if at times she cannot resist the tendency to ‘personalize’ her data, then that is merely her style and for this reader is only additive. The preface page of her book quotes the words of Thomas Wentworth Higginson: “There is no conceivable/beauty of blossom/so beautiful as words -/none so graceful,/none so perfumed.” This lovely thought is a fitting introduction to the writing of Judith Farr, too. I wonder which aspect of Emily Dickinson she will explore next….

Judith Farr is the preeminent Emily Dickson scholar alive today. This is a worthy companion to The Passion of Emily Dickson, also published by Harvard Press. If you are unfamiliar with Farr’s work and love Emily Dickinson, you owe it to yourself to read both works. Farr’s insights are bold, well-defended and entirely convincing. Her writing is crisp, direct and immensely readable. Also, this is without a doubt one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen in presentation. The color plates are worth the price of the book alone. Better than 5 stars.

The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Wendy Martin

“Arguably the most noteworthy book in Dickinson studies published last year.” Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin

“Martin has gathered the collective expertise of some of the world’s foremost Dickinson scholars in this well-rounded volume. Highly recommended.” Choice

This Companion consists of 14 essays by leading international scholars. They provide a series of new perspectives on one of the most enigmatic and widely read American writers. These essays, specially tailored to the needs of undergraduates, examine all of Dickinson’s writings, letters and criticism, and place her work in a variety of literary, cultural and political contexts. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students. It features a detailed chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, as we mark her 177th birthday (born December 10, 1830, Amherst, Massachusetts). But is this poet well understood, and are her birthdays and other important dates even recognized other than by those already devoted to her? One editorial reviewer for Amazon of the Cambridge Companion makes a key mistake-stating that she is one of our most important “19th Century poets.” No–Dickinson is one of the two most important American poets in all our literature-of whatever century, and most likely including this new one- the other candidate for top honors being Walt Whitman. Arguably, Dickinson is the more important of the two given the resonance in our later poetry with the depth of her interior, private vision. Whitman aspired to be America’s great public bard-a project Robert Pinsky and others have pointed out that did not succeed (see my Amazon review of Pinsky’s Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry). But Dickinson’s intense private vision is more responsible than Whitman’s public one for generating followers and inspiring others. Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane are two examples. With rare exceptions, American poetry has developed more along the lines suggested by her more private vision and voice than it has to the broad, public sweep of Whitman’s long-windedness.

Everyone more or less knows who Dickinson is, and most educated persons have probably read at least one of her poems. But, do we grasp what a deep treasure trove Dickinson has left us? Do we get beyond the superficial portrait most have of her? And most importantly, how do we access the wealth of creativity and insight that lies beyond the few dozen or so most popular Dickinson poems most of us are familiar with?

Wendy Martin’s Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson is a great place to start broadening our view of her. The war over Dickinson’s manuscripts (today part still belong to Harvard and part to Amherst College) and for defining her as a person is something that happened shortly after she died and was caused by a schism of sorts in her family when her brother, Austin Dickinson, took a lover, Mabel Loomis Todd, outside of his marriage to Emily’s beloved friend, companion and lifelong correspondent, Susan Dickinson. This is a really racy story! It is ably narrated in Betsy Erkkila’s essay “The Emily Dickinson Wars.”

Christopher Benfey’s essay “Emily Dickinson and the American South,” is also remarkable. How do you explain the fact that Dickinson wrote throughout the Civil War, Emancipation, etc. and has almost nothing to say about these huge events? While not a Southern sympathizer, there is much in her work that accords with the agrarian, aristocratic elements in American life that was also represented in the South and its literature, and she fit the sensibility of those who yearned for a pre-Industrial America in the 20th Century quite well-although it doesn’t really fully define her to see it in this way.

Wendy Martin’s own essay on Dickinson’s poetic strategies is a strong overview of how some of the larger elements in Dickinson’s life worked themselves out in her verse, including her deeply meaningful relationship with her sister-in-law. Martin is very strong on her analysis of the poetic use of words like “sun” which appears so often in the poems, and she sees Dickinson as one who revels with her volcanic creativity in night and darkness. It’s a luxurious image and picture of her.

I have to confess that, though our last names are the same, I am no relation to Emily Dickinson. Starting when I was a very young child, my mother (who grew up not far from Amherst in a similar setting) read her to me frequently, and I was somewhat confused about the name. For quite some time I thought when my mother said we were “not related” that we really were related. I felt the poems were something that had been written to us, like letters from a relative, which were also sometimes read aloud to the family. I was disappointed to learn that “no relation” actually meant we weren’t related-and somehow before figuring it out got some of the deeper messages even as a very young child -it was as though they had been meant especially for me and sent from a kindred soul.

One suggestion for how to celebrate Emily Dickinson’s birthday each December 10th is to read this book and others like it-and to re-encounter Dickinson’s poems over and over. They richly repay our efforts to understand and enjoy them.