I am grateful to Ellen Fladger, head of Special Collections, Union College, for her ongoing generosity and support; ditto the indefatigable Mary Cahill, head of Interlibrary Loan, at Union College. Speaking of generosity: again Kent Bicknell has proven himself munificent, helpful, and always willing to share the marvelous papers and books in his burgeoning treasure trove of American literature. So too I am grateful to Philip Gura, who was willing to let me use his d.i.c.kinson daguerreotype reproduced in these pages.

I have been fortunate enough to work with marvelous students, both in my d.i.c.kinson seminar at Union College, and at Columbia University, where my nonfiction colleagues Patty O'Toole, Richard Locke, and Lis Harris graciously selected the novelist Thorn Kief Hillsbery as my Hertog Fellow. At Union, I am also indebted to the fine work of Shaun Kirk, and, at Columbia, of Kate Daloz, Abigail Rabinowitz, and Kim Tingley, who happily took on many painstaking bibliographical and other tasks with real panache. And many thanks to Robert Polito, director of the Writing Program at the New School, who has created a superb working environment for writers. I am also grateful to Stephen Motika of Poets House, as well as Lee Briccetti and Margo Viscusi, who invited me to celebrate the republication of Susan Howe's My Emily d.i.c.kinson My Emily d.i.c.kinson and Emily d.i.c.kinson in the twenty-first century. and Emily d.i.c.kinson in the twenty-first century.

To friends, I owe much more than thanks. For reading the entire ma.n.u.script with typical insight, imagination, and discernment, I am indebted to novelist Christopher Bram; to my former editor, the sensitive author Frances Kiernan; and to the indomitable Byron Dobell; so too am I indebted to the special friendship of novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum, who read several chapters of the ma.n.u.script with typical sensitivity and clear-eyed candor. And over the years, I've learned from and been sustained by the invaluable companionship, conversation, and charm of David Alexander, Jack Barth, Frederick Brown, Ina Caro, Robert Caro, Jack Diggins, Benita Eisler, Wendy Gimbel, Elizabeth Harlan, Doug Liebhafsky, Richard Lingeman, Molly Haskell, Roch.e.l.le Gurstein, Herbert Leibowitz, Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Stacy Schiff, the late, lamented Saul A. Silverman, Susan Yankowitz, and Larzer Ziff. And thanks very specially, too, to my beloved friend, the poet and translator, Richard Howard, who reminds me always "only a hidden life is there / to be looked for, not found."

I am thoroughly indebted to the incomparable Victoria Wilson, my editor, a woman of decisiveness, perspicacity, kindness, and wit. Again, it has been a privilege to work with her, and I thank her more than I can say for shepherding this book from inception to production with typical intelligence and good sense. I am also grateful to her superb colleagues at Knopf: Carmen Johnson, Vicky Wilson's a.s.sistant, whose diligence, meticulousness, and gentle support go beyond the call of duty; Abigail Winograd, who confronted the difficulties of copyediting this ma.n.u.script, with all its poems and variants of poems, with courage and smarts; to Caryn Burtt, for her scrupulous attention to permission and legal matters; to Jason Booher and to Victoria Wilson, for the book's jacket design; and to Iris Weinstein, for the text design. I am also grateful to my agent, Lynn Nesbit, for her bracing honesty, integrity, and humor, and to everyone I've had the pleasure of working with at her agency; a special thanks, too, to Tina Simms and the wonderful and encouraging Richard Morris.

For their love and their extraordinary and tenacious courage, I salute my parents, Helen and Irving Wineapple.

For his love, his breadth, his brilliance, and for the depths of his music, inner and outer, I thank my husband, Michael Dellaira, an intimate part of every word in this book and the best part of anything I do. With characteristic open-heartedness and insight, he suggested I dedicate it to the sustaining friend I recently lost-the amazing writer that the world lost-for we shall not see her like again. To Michael and to Sybille, then, forever astonishing.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

For frequently cited names, the following abbreviations are used: d.i.c.kINSONS

ED Emily d.i.c.kinson EdD Edward d.i.c.kinson (father) END Emily Norcross d.i.c.kinson (mother) LD Lavinia d.i.c.kinson (sister) MDB Martha d.i.c.kinson Bianchi (niece) SGD Susan Gilbert d.i.c.kinson (sister-in-law) WAD (William) Austin d.i.c.kinson (brother)

HIGGINSONS

AH Anna Higginson (sister) LH Louisa Higginson (sister) LSH Louisa Storrow Higginson (mother) MCH Mary Channing Higginson MTH Mary (Minnie) Thacher Higginson TWH Thomas Wentworth Higginson

OTHERS

HHJ Helen Hunt Jackson MLT Mabel Loomis Todd MTB Millicent Todd Bingham

For frequently cited books, the following abbreviations are used:

AB MTB, Ancestors' Brocades Ancestors' Brocades Austin and Mabel Longsworth, Austin and Mabel Austin and Mabel Dear Preceptor Wells, Dear Preceptor Dear Preceptor Fr ED, The Poems of Emily d.i.c.kinson, The Poems of Emily d.i.c.kinson, variorum ed. or variorum ed. or Reading Edition Reading Edition (see note below) (see note below) Home MTB, Emily d.i.c.kinson's Home Emily d.i.c.kinson's Home Letters ED, The Letters of Emily d.i.c.kinson The Letters of Emily d.i.c.kinson LL Sewall, The Lyman Letters The Lyman Letters Poems, First Series First Series ED, Poems, Poems, ed. MLT and TWH, 1890 ed. MLT and TWH, 1890 Poems, Second Series Second Series ED, Poems, Poems, ed. TWH and MLT, 1891 ed. TWH and MLT, 1891 Revelation MTB, Emily d.i.c.kinson: A Revelation Emily d.i.c.kinson: A Revelation Sewall Sewall, The Life of Emily d.i.c.kinson The Life of Emily d.i.c.kinson Strange Enthusiasm Edelstein, Strange Enthusiasm Strange Enthusiasm TWH MTH, Thomas Wentworth Higginson Thomas Wentworth Higginson Werner Werner, Emily d.i.c.kinson's Open Folios Emily d.i.c.kinson's Open Folios YH Leyda, The Years and Hours of Emily d.i.c.kinson The Years and Hours of Emily d.i.c.kinson

For frequently cited writings by TWH, the following abbreviations are used:

Afternoon Landscape The Afternoon Landscape Army Life Army Life in a Black Regiment Book and Heart Book and Heart: Essays on Literature and Life Civil War Journal The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters Contemp.

Contemporaries CY Cheerful Yesterdays L&J Letters and Journals Magnificent Activist The Magnificent Activist Malbone Malbone: An Oldport Romance Monarch The Monarch of Dreams New World The New World and the New Book Part Part of a Man's Life Thalatta Longfellow and TWH, Thalatta: A Book for the Seaside Thalatta: A Book for the Seaside Wishes Woman and Her Wishes W&M Women and Men

For frequently cited libraries and ma.n.u.script depositories, the following abbreviations are used. (Note that in quoting primary materials, including poems, I have retained the writer's original spelling and punctuation so that the reader may better hear the author's voice.) (Note that in quoting primary materials, including poems, I have retained the writer's original spelling and punctuation so that the reader may better hear the author's voice.)

AAS American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Ma.s.s.

Amherst Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Ma.s.s.

BPL Rare Books and and Ma.n.u.script Department and Special Collections, Boston Public Library Butler Special Collections, Nicholas Murray Butler Library, Columbia University Libraries, New York Colorado Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Houghton Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma.s.s.

Huntington Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif.

Kansas Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kans.

LC Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

MHS Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, Boston NYPL Ma.n.u.scripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library Smith Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Ma.s.s.

Stowe Center Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Conn.

UVA Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville Yale Ma.n.u.scripts and Archives Department, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn.

THE FRANKLIN NUMBERS Because most of Emily d.i.c.kinson's poems were unpublished in her lifetime, we do not know which version of them, if any, she considered "final," and prior to 1955, the variants were not available to the public. Rather, most of her editors, like Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Todd, chose-have to choose-which version of the poem they would print and/or how they would print it. But in 1955, Thomas H. Johnson, with the a.s.sistance of Theodora Ward, published a three-volume edition of d.i.c.kinson's poems "including variant readings critically compared with all known ma.n.u.scripts." This groundbreaking edition of poems also established the numbering system (instead of t.i.tles, which d.i.c.kinson herself rarely used) commonly employed in d.i.c.kinson studies.

Subsequently, the most recent compilation of d.i.c.kinson's work and its variants is the R. W. Franklin three-volume variorum edition, published in 1998. Franklin, who published the Ma.n.u.script Books of Emily d.i.c.kinson Ma.n.u.script Books of Emily d.i.c.kinson in 1981, includes more and recently discovered d.i.c.kinson poems and renumbers them. Though not complete-and inevitably contested-the Franklin version is, to date, the best we have. I have used its numbering system, which supersedes Johnson's, but since few readers have access to the three-volume edition, in quoting from d.i.c.kinson's poetry I drew on the single version of the poem that Franklin chose to include in his one-volume, readily available in 1981, includes more and recently discovered d.i.c.kinson poems and renumbers them. Though not complete-and inevitably contested-the Franklin version is, to date, the best we have. I have used its numbering system, which supersedes Johnson's, but since few readers have access to the three-volume edition, in quoting from d.i.c.kinson's poetry I drew on the single version of the poem that Franklin chose to include in his one-volume, readily available Reading Edition. Reading Edition.

Still, there are exceptions. If a poem d.i.c.kinson sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, for instance, is not the version included in the Reading Edition, Reading Edition, I quoted from the version of the poem printed in the variorum edition. It is identified by number and with the alphabetical designation (A, B, C, or D) employed by Franklin. And, in several cases, I quoted from the variorum edition and used its alphabetical designation when referring to a particular version of a poem sent to a particular recipient. I quoted from the version of the poem printed in the variorum edition. It is identified by number and with the alphabetical designation (A, B, C, or D) employed by Franklin. And, in several cases, I quoted from the variorum edition and used its alphabetical designation when referring to a particular version of a poem sent to a particular recipient.

CHAPTER ONE: THE LETTER "This is my letter to the World": Fr 519.

"Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?": ED to TWH, April 15, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:403. 2:403.

after reading from a statement: See Lucy Stone, "Protest against the Laws of Marriage," Protest Read at Wedding Ceremony, May 1, 1855, reprinted in Dorothy Emerson, Standing Before Us, Standing Before Us, p. 57. p. 57.

"I enjoy danger": TWH, Kansas notebook, Houghton.

"Could I make you and Austin-proud-": ED to SGD, [summer 1861. Many of Johnson's dates are speculative, and so unless I can be sure of the date or an approximation of it, I have put it in brackets.], Letters, Letters, 2:380. 2:380.

"Should you think it breathed-": ED to TWH, April 15, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:403. 2:403.

"the most curious thing about the letter was the total absence of a signature": TWH, "Emily d.i.c.kinson's Letters," p. 444.

"I'll tell you how the Sun rose-": Fr 204.

"The nearest Dream recedes-unrealized-": Fr 304.

"the impression of a wholly new and original poetic genius": TWH, "Emily d.i.c.kinson's Letters," p. 445.

"I read your Chapters": ED to TWH, April 25, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:405. 2:405.

"Safe in their Alabaster Chambers-": Fr 124.

"There may be years"..."Charge your style with life": TWH, "Letter to a Young Contributor," pp. 403, 404.

"I foresee that 'Young Contributors' will send me worse things": TWH to James T. Fields, Houghton, quoted in YH, YH, 2:55. 2:55.

"Two such specimens": TWH to James T. Fields, April 17, 1862, Huntington.

"Since that Letter to a Young Contributor": TWH to LSH, April 18, 1862, Houghton.

"I tried a little": TWH, "Emily d.i.c.kinson's Letters," p. 448.

"surgery" "It was not so painful as I supposed": ED to TWH, April 25, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:404. 2:404.

"with a naive skill": TWH, "Emily d.i.c.kinson's Letters," p. 445.

"but in your manner of the phrase" "they are better than Beings": ED to TWH, April 25, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:404405. 2:404405.

"In a Life that stopped guessing": ED to SGD, [1878], Letters, Letters, 2:632. 2:632.

"does not care for thought" "begs me not to read them" "except me-" "I sing": ED to TWH, April 25, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:404. 2:404.

"When far afterward-": ED to TWH, June 7, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:408. 2:408.

who "came to my Father's House": ED to TWH, April 25, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:405. 2:405.

"I cannot think of a bliss as great": TWH, Field Book, September 20, 1861, Houghton.

he unsuccessfully tried to organize a military expedition: See TWH to Sydney Howard Gay, May 5, 1861, Butler.

"I have thoroughly made up my mind" "This war, for which I long": TWH, journal, August 25, 1861, Houghton.

"a column of newspaper or a column of attack": TWH, "Letter to a Young Contributor," p. 409.

"The General Rose-decay-": Fr 772.

"South Winds jostle them-": Fr 98E.

"Your letter gave no Drunkenness": ED to TWH, June 7, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:408. 2:408.

"You think my gait 'spasmodic'-" "The 'hand you stretch me in the Dark'": ED to TWH, June 7, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:409. 2:409.

"'To publish'-" "if fame belonged to me": ED to TWH, June 7, 1862, Letters, Letters, 2:408. 2:408.