Other editions of book The Complete Poems

This comprehensive and authoritative collection of all 1,775 poems by Emily Dickinson is an essential volume for all lovers of American literature.Only eleven of Emily Dickinson's poems were published prior to her death in 1886; the startling originality of her work doomed it to obscurity in her lifetime. Early posthumous published collections -- some of them featuring liberally "edited" versions of the poems -- did not fully and accurately represent Dickinson's bold experiments in prosody, her tragic vision, and the range of her intellectual and emotional explorations. Not until the 1955 publication of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, a three-volume critical edition compiled by Thomas H. Johnson, were readers able for the first time to assess, understand, and appreciate the whole of Dickinson's extraordinary poetic genius. This book, a distillation of the three-volume Complete Poems, brings together the original texts of all 1,775 poems that Emily Dickinson wrote. "With its chronological arrangement of the poems, this volume becomes more than just a collection; it is at the same time a poetic biography of the thoughts and feelings of a woman whose beauty was deep and lasting." --San Francisco Chronicle

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a reclusive poet whose only friendships were carried out in correspondence. Despite writing almost 1800 poems in her life, very few were published until after her death. Here, the poems are presented in chronological order in their original form, unaltered by editorial revision, in one volume. It offers a wide-angle view of Dickinson's poetic development, from the clunky rhyme schemes of her youth, through valentines she wrote in the early 1850s, to the gloomy, hell-obsessed writings of her last years.

This complete compendium of Emily Dickinson's poetry offers the reader a vivid portrait of one of Massachusetts most famous and enigmatic poets.Although a greatly talented writer, Emily Dickinson lived most of her life in private seclusion, in contrast to the culture of the time which emphasized community and socializing. Throughout her life, Emily's family ensured her care and comfort; she lived a life characterized by quiet self-seclusion. Emily's early life ensured a great standard of education, with her aunts in particular noting her inclination toward musical and literary interests.Contemporary scholars generally agree that Emily Dickinson's isolation was chiefly the result of a persistent depression. The death of a school principal she admired, and of several friends, plummeted her toward isolation during the prime of her life. Despite her illness, she managed to travel with her family to see life beyond her hometown of Amhurst and publish a few of her poems.In later life, Dickinson spent much of her time looking after her ailing mother in complete seclusion. During these years she compiled all of her poetry from youth, redrafted many entries, and meticulously organized her work into manuscript books which her sister discovered shortly after her death at the home. For its eloquence and beauty, Emily Dickinson's poems is regarded as one of the greatest examples of American verse, and today commonly comprises school syllabuses in the United States.

This comprehensive and authoritative collection of all 1,775 poems by Emily Dickinson is an essential volume for all lovers of American literature.Only eleven of Emily Dickinson's poems were published prior to her death in 1886; the startling originality of her work doomed it to obscurity in her lifetime. Early posthumous published collections -- some of them featuring liberally "edited" versions of the poems -- did not fully and accurately represent Dickinson's bold experiments in prosody, her tragic vision, and the range of her intellectual and emotional explorations. Not until the 1955 publication of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, a three-volume critical edition compiled by Thomas H. Johnson, were readers able for the first time to assess, understand, and appreciate the whole of Dickinson's extraordinary poetic genius. This book, a distillation of the three-volume Complete Poems, brings together the original texts of all 1,775 poems that Emily Dickinson wrote. "With its chronological arrangement of the poems, this volume becomes more than just a collection; it is at the same time a poetic biography of the thoughts and feelings of a woman whose beauty was deep and lasting." --San Francisco Chronicle

Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886-when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems-that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent.

This complete compendium of Emily Dickenson's poetry offers the reader a vivid portrait of one of Massachusetts' most famous and enigmatic poets. Although a greatly talented writer, Emily Dickenson lived most of her life in private seclusion, in contrast to the culture of the time which emphasized community and socializing. Throughout her life, Emily's family ensured her care and comfort; she lived a life characterized by quiet self-seclusion. Emily's early life ensured a great standard of education, with her aunts in particular noting her inclination toward musical and literary interests. Contemporary scholars generally agree that Emily Dickenson's isolation was chiefly the result of a persistent depression. The death of a school principal she admired, and of several friends, plummeted her toward isolation during the prime of her life. Despite her illness, she managed to travel with her family to see life beyond her hometown of Amhurst and publish a few of her poems.

This 770 page book contains hundreds of poems composed by Emily Dickinson between the years 1850-1886, plus many that were found after her death with unknown dates of composition. From the Introduction by Thomas Johnson: "The text for this edition reproduces solely and completely that of the 1955 variorum edition, but intended as a reading text, it selects but one form of each poem. Selection becomes mandatory for the semi-final drafts. Though by far the largest number of packet copies exist in but a single fair-copy version, several exist in semifinal form: those for which marginally the poet suggested an alternate reading for one word or more. In order to keep editorial construction to a bare minimum, I have followed the policy of adopting such suggestions only when underlined, presumably Emily Dickinson's method of indicating her own preference. Rough drafts, of which there are relatively few, are allowed to stand as such, with no editorial tinkering. The date at the left, following each poem, is that conjectured for the earliest known manuscript; that to the right is the date of first publication. The order of the poems is that of the Harvard (variorum) edition."

Nearly everyone who's had a brush with American lit knows the story of Emily Dickinson - her poetry unpublished in her lifetime, and then even after her death, her verses seeing the light of day only after having been "improved" on by an editor who found her rhymes imperfect and her meter "spasmodic." He even went so far as to make her metaphors "sensible."