At the Evergreens, Dickinson met and began a correspondence with Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.

Dickinson wrote the bulk of her nearly 1,800 poems during her years at the Homestead. Five of her poems were printed in the Springfield Republican, but Dickinson herself made only one serious attempt at further publication, sending four poems in 1862 to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, poetry editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Higginson advised her against publication, saying that the style of her poetry—its unusual rhythm and rhyming—was not commercial. The two continued to correspond, however, and became close friends.

Following the death of her father in 1874, Dickinson became increasingly reclusive, corresponding with friends mainly through letters. She continued writing poetry, and she and her sister, Lavinia, nursed their bedridden mother. Over the next ten years, many of her close friends and family died, including Samuel Bowles, Charles Wadsworth, her mother, and her nephew. In 1884 Dickinson was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a serious kidney disorder. She died from complications of the disease on May 15, 1886.

After Dickinson’s death, Lavinia discovered her sister’s poems, arranged into little packets bundled with string. She gave them to Higginson and her friend Mabel Loomis Todd for editing. The first of three volumes, titled Poems, came out in 1890. A revival of interest in Dickinson’s life and poetry occurred in the late 1950s, when Thomas H. Johnson published the first complete edition of Dickinson’s poems that was faithful in wording and punctuation to her original manuscripts.

THE WORLD OF EMILY DICKINSON AND HER POETRY

1630Nathaniel Dickinson, the first of Emily Dickinson’s family to arrive in America, settles in New England.
1813Dickinson’s grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, builds the Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts; the town’s first brick house, it will be Dickinson’s home for most of her life.
1814Samuel Fowler Dickinson founds Amherst Academy, which quickly becomes a leading preparatory school in western Massachusetts.
1821He cofounds the Amherst Collegiate Institution, renamed Amherst College in 1825.
1830Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is born on December 10, the second child of Edward Dickinson, a prominent lawyer, and Emily Norcross Dickinson
1835Edward Dickinson is appointed treasurer of Amherst College.
1840The Dickinsons move from the Homestead to North Pleasant Street. In the fall Emily and her sister, Lavinia, enter Amherst Academy. Emily is particularly influenced by a teacher, Edward Hitchcock, who emphasizes both religion and science in his lectures and writings.
1847She attends Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in nearby South Hadley, Massachusetts. At Mount Holyoke, she begins to question her father’s Puritanical religious convictions.
1848In the fall Dickinson leaves Mount Holyoke and moves back into her father’s home. She becomes friends with Ben Newton, a young lawyer in her father’s office.
1850Her brother, Austin, begins courting Susan Huntington Gilbert, with whom Dickinson develops an intimate correspondence. Ben Newton gives her a copy of Emerson’s poems for Christmas.
1853Ben Newton’s death on March 24 has a profound effect on Dickinson.
1855Dickinson makes a brief trip with her sister and father to Philadelphia; she meets the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who becomes a close friend and correspondent. Edward Dickinson repurchases the Homestead ; he builds an addition to the house, including a conservatory for Emily’s exotic plants.
1856Austin Dickinson and Susan Gilbert marry; they move into the Evergreens, a house adjacent to the Homestead built for them by Edward as a wedding present.
1858At the Evergreens, Dickinson meets the literary editor and critic Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican ; they begin a correspondence.
1861The Civil War breaks out.
1855Dickinson sends four of her poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, poetry editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He advises her to regularize the “rough rhythms” and “imperfect rhymes” of her poetry, which he thinks damage its commercial potential. She instead chooses not to publish her works. Dickinson and Higginson begin a correspondence that lasts twenty years.
1864Dickinson makes two trips to Boston over the next two years to visit an eye specialist. These are the last times she leaves Amherst.
1874Dickinson’s father dies in Boston on June 16. With his death, Dickinson becomes more reclusive, keeping contact with friends and family mainly through letters. She and Lavinia maintain the Homestead and nurse their invalid mother.
1878Samuel Bowles dies on January 16.
1882Charles Wadsworth dies on April 1; Dickinson’s mother also dies this year, on November 14.
1883Dickinson’s nephew Gilbert, the son of Austin and Susan Gilbert, dies.
1884On June 14 Dickinson suffers her first attack of Bright’s disease, a serious kidney disorder.
1886Dickinson dies on May 15. Among those attending her funeral is her lifelong friend and mentor Thomas Higginson.
1890Lavinia finds Dickinson’s poems, untitled and bundled into fascicles (sewn paper booklets). She gives them to Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, another friend of Dickinson‘s, for editing. The first of three volumes titled Poems is published (the other two are published in 1891 and 1896). The manuscripts are then kept in storage for the next sixty years.
1894Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Todd, is published.
1899Lavinia dies in 1899.
1914An edition of Dickinson’s poetry—The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime—edited by her niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi is published.
1955Thomas H. Johnson rediscovers Dickinson’s original poems; he publishes The Poems of Emily Dickinson, the first complete collection of her poetry that is free from editorial revisions. The book’s publication leads to a renewed interest in Dickinson’s poetry.
1963The Homestead is designated a National Historic Landmark.
1965Amherst College purchases the Homestead and opens the house as the Emily Dickinson Museum.
1977The State of Massachusetts establishes the Emily Dickinson Historic District, which includes the Homestead, the Evergreens, and surrounding properties.

INTRODUCTION

Emily Dickinson, writing to the editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson in July 1862, reported that she “had no portrait,” but offered the following description in place of one: “Small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur—and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves—Would this do just as well?” (Selected Letters, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, p. 175; see “For Further Reading”).