The letters of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

Book - 2024

"The Letters of Emily Dickinson collects, redates, and recontextualizes all of the poet's extant letters, including dozens newly discovered or never before anthologized. Insightful annotations emphasize not the reclusive poet of myth but rather an artist firmly embedded in the political and literary currents of her time"--

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Subjects
Genres
personal correspondence
Personal correspondence
Published
Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886 (author)
Physical Description
x, 955 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780674982970
  • Abbreviations
  • List of Illustrations
  • Introduction: "All the letters I can write"
  • Letters
  • Writing Notes
  • Miscellaneous Writings
  • Dickinson's Correspondents and Others
  • Key to The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958)
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index of Letters to and about Emily Dickinson
  • Index of Poems
  • Index of Names
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A newly expanded, annotated edition of the poet's letters, the first in more than 60 years. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is one of the most recognizable poets in history. Yet, as the editors note in the introduction, she "was a letter writer before she was a poet." She was a prolific and passionate correspondent, and this new edition contains 1,304 of her letters, "as well as all of the extant letters that [she] received." This extraordinary collection shows her to be a masterful prose writer, and, contrary to her popular image as a recluse, the letters reveal that "Dickinson was by no means an isolated, lonely, woman." The editors include hundreds of new letters, redate many of the previously published ones based on careful research, and provide essential annotations. Additionally, where possible, they restore omissions by previous letter transcribers. In some cases, the restorations are critical to our ability to reevaluate who Dickinson was in relation to those in her correspondence. While her prose writing is noteworthy in itself, the editors also include many "letter-poems." Dickinson frequently sent poems in her correspondence, often without an accompanying note. Included in this edition alongside her regular letters, they provide beautiful texture to the collection. Perhaps the most delightful materials, though, are the writing notes. Like many writers, Dickinson collected scraps of language and fragments of poems, which she may have used to draft both her letters and poems. Seeing them together shows how "a retained metaphor or sequence of language might serve as the germ of a letter, or it might linger in her workshop until a letter seemed just right to house it, just as a poem might begin with a resonant phrase." The notes, in particular, provide illuminating insight into the mind and process of a truly brilliant writer. An exciting new standard in Dickinson scholarship. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.