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Emily Dickinson lived almost all her life in her family's house in Amherst, Massachusetts, and wrote nearly eighteen hundred poems, of which only about ten…
Emily Dickinson lived almost all her life in her family's house in Amherst, Massachusetts, and wrote nearly eighteen hundred poems, of which only about ten were published while she was alive. After her death in 1886 her sister found them among her belongings, and the first selections appeared in the 1890s.
Context and significance
Her short poems, with their dashes, unexpected rhymes and sudden images, speak of death, nature, faith and the inner life with extraordinary intensity: 'Because I could not stop for Death', 'Hope is the thing with feathers', 'I'm Nobody! Who are you?'. The early editors smoothed some of her punctuation, but her voice is unmistakable.
About the author
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) spent almost all her life in her family's house in Amherst, Massachusetts. After a year at a women's seminary she withdrew more and more from society, dressing in white and receiving few visitors, though she kept up a lively correspondence with friends and with the critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
She wrote nearly eighteen hundred poems, sewing many into small handmade booklets, and published only a handful. Her sister discovered them after her death, and a complete edition faithful to her dashes and capital letters appeared only in 1955. Her Poems made her one of the greatest poets in English.