Illustrations Insert

Fig. 1: Emily Dickinson at about age seventeen. “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.”

Fig. 2: Emily Norcross Dickinson. Portrait by Otis Allen Bullard. “Mines in the same Ground meet by tunneling and when she became our Child, the Affection came.”

Fig. 3: Edward Dickinson. “His Heart was pure and terrible and I think no other like it exists.”

Fig. 4: William Austin Dickinson. “There was always such a Hurrah wherever you was.”

Fig. 5: Lavinia Dickinson. Emily’s bond with Vinnie was “early, earnest, indissoluble.”

Fig. 6: Susan Gilbert Dickinson. “Where my Hands are cut, Her fingers will be found inside.”

Fig. 7: Abiah Root. “Don’t let your free spirit be chained.”

Fig. 8: Amherst Academy. “I am always in love with my teachers.”

Fig. 9: Mary Lyon, principal of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. “Do something. Have a plan. Live for a purpose,” she told her students.

Fig. 10: “My domestic work is not difficult & consists in carrying the Knives from the 1st tier of tables at morning & noon & at night.” Mount Holyoke Female Seminary domestic work “pie circle.”

Fig. 11: Ebenezer Snell, Amherst College professor and meteorological record keeper.

Fig. 12: Ebenezer Snell’s Meteorological Journal for August 3, 1845: “Parhelion at noon.”

Fig. 13: The Dickinsons’ home from 1840–1855.

Fig. 14: Amherst College student George Gould, responsible for publishing Emily’s prose valentine, her first publication.

Fig. 15: Josiah Holland who, along with Samuel Bowles, published Dickinson’s first poem. “The hand that wrote the following amusing medley is capable of very fine things.”

Fig. 16: Elizabeth Chapin Holland relayed Dickinson’s letters to Rev. Charles Wadsworth.

Fig. 17: Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican. “The most triumphant Face out of Paradise.”

Fig. 18: Author and friend Helen Hunt told Dickinson, “You are a great poet – and it is a wrong to the day you live in, that you will not sing aloud.”

Fig. 19: Rev. Charles Wadsworth. “My closest earthly friend.”

Fig. 20: Dickinson’s Amherst was a town of books, learning, and ideas. Its best women, one resident said, were free from “silly birdish airs.”

Fig. 21: When writing at her desk, Dickinson looked out the window to the Evergreens, home of her brother, Austin, and sister-in-law, Sue.

Fig. 22: Emily’s bedroom in the Dickinson Homestead was a sanctuary where her family did not intrude.

Fig. 23: The Dickinson Homestead on Main Street in Amherst.

Fig. 24: The Evergreens in winter.

Fig. 25: Col. William Clark of the Massachusetts 21st Volunteer Infantry. “War feels to me an oblique place,” Dickinson wrote.

Fig. 26: Frazar Stearns (right), lieutenant Massachusetts 21st Volunteer Infantry. “His big heart shot away by a ‘minie ball.’”

Fig. 27: Johnson Chapel at Amherst College, site of the cannon dedication ceremony for Frazar Stearns and the Massachusetts 21st.

Fig. 28: The Atlantic Monthly and Springfield Republican in the Dickinson family library. Both publications played significant roles in the publication of Emily’s poetry.

Fig. 29: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dickinson’s literary mentor. “You were not aware that you saved my Life.”

Fig. 30: The Dickinson family was immersed in politics, and owned cartes de visite of Union generals, senators, and this one of President Abraham Lincoln.

Fig. 31: The Dickinsons often walked “up-street” to the center of town for books, gloves, French chocolate, or oysters at Frank P. Wood’s Dining Rooms.

Fig. 32: Visitors to Amherst such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson stayed at the Amherst House Hotel.

Fig. 33: Detail of Dickinson’s white dress.

Fig. 34: The Dickinson Law Office was on the second floor, left corner of Amherst’s Palmer Block.

Fig. 35: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emily said he seemed to “come from where dreams were born.”

Fig. 36: Upon returning home from treatment in Boston for an eye disorder, Dickinson climbed the stairs to the family attic where, alone, she recited Shakespeare.

Fig. 37: Nephew Edward “Ned” Dickinson wanted a house where his mother could live in peace. “No fame, no brains, no family, no scholarship, No Anything.”

Fig. 38: Niece Martha “Mattie” Dickinson. “Don’t cut all the blossoms,” Emily told her.

Fig. 39: Nephew Gilbert “Gib” Dickinson at around six years old. He died two years later. “I see him in the Star, and meet his sweet velocity in everything that flies.”

Fig. 40: Mabel Loomis Todd. An alternate signature to her name underscores her affair with Dickinson’s brother, Austin.

Fig. 41: Before animosities over Austin’s affair, Mabel Loomis Todd and Susan Dickinson enjoyed outings with friends. They jokingly called their group the Shutesbury School of Philosophy. Mabel Loomis Todd (standing in white dress), Susan Dickinson (holding son Gib), Martha Dickinson (in straw hat), Ned Dickinson (with tennis racket), and David Peck Todd (behind Ned in dark suit).

Fig. 42: Judge Otis P. Lord. “My Church,” Dickinson called him.

Fig. 43: Helen Hunt Jackson with unidentified woman at her home in Colorado Springs. Jackson was relentless in urging Dickinson to publish.

Fig, 44: After young Gib’s death, Austin and Susan left their son’s bedroom untouched.

Fig. 45: Marsh Undertaking in Amherst took Dickinson’s final measure: “Death: May 15. Funeral to take place: May 19. Place of Funeral: House. Length to Heel: 5 feet 6 inches.”

Fig. 46: Homestead’s back door through which workmen carried Dickinson’s coffin. “Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.”

Fig. 47: Emily Dickinson’s grave, and two of the last words she ever wrote. West Cemetery, Amherst, Massachusetts.

Fig. 48: Dickinson never lost her fascination for plants. Her conservatory, adjacent to the family library, was both a laboratory and refuge for her.

Fig. 49: “I see – New Englandly.” The cupola atop the Homestead offered Dickinson a panoramic view.

Fig. 50: The “Pony Express” path between the Dickinson Homestead and the Evergreens.