Chronology


1828 (May 6): Edward Dickinson and Emily Norcross married

1829 (April 16): William Austin Dickinson born

1830 (December 10): Emily Elizabeth Dickinson born

1833 (February 28): Lavinia Norcross Dickinson born

1840: Dickinson family moves from Homestead to Pleasant Street home

1840–47: ED attends Amherst Academy

1847–48: ED spends one year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary

1850: Revival in Amherst

1853 (March 24): Benjamin Franklin Newton dies

1855 (Winter): ED and Lavinia travel to Washington to visit their father, Congressman Edward Dickinson; return trip via Philadelphia, home of Charles Wadsworth

1855: Dickinson family moves back to Homestead on Main Street

1856 (July 1): Austin Dickinson and Susan Gilbert married

1858–65: Period of ED’s greatest poetic productivity (more than 1,000 poems)

1858–61: ED writes three “Master Letters”

1861: Civil War begins

1862 (April 15): ED writes first letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson

1864, 1865: ED travels twice to Boston for eye care

1865: Civil War ends

1870 (August 16): Higginson visits Homestead, meets ED for first time

1874 (June 16): Edward Dickinson dies

1875 (June 15): Emily Norcross Dickinson suffers stroke

1878 (January 16): Samuel Bowles dies

1878–84: ED develops relationship with Otis Phillips Lord, considers marriage

1882 (April 1): Charles Wadsworth dies

1882 (November 14): Emily Norcross Dickinson dies

1883 (October 5): Thomas Gilbert Dickinson (nephew) dies; ED leaves home for first time in at least fifteen years

1884 (March 13): Otis Phillips Lord dies

1884 (June 14): ED collapses; early stages of final illness

1885 (August 12): Helen Hunt Jackson dies

1886 (May 15): ED dies; funeral held May 19

1890 (November 12): First edition of ED’s Poems published

1894 (November 21): First edition of Letters of Emily Dickinson published