Emily Dickinson led a quiet life, treasuring her privacy and eventually giving herself over completely to her art: it was in her poetry that she “deliberately decided to live” and there that she is most clearly revealed to us. Yet until now, no biography of this most enigmatic of American poets has attempted to unravel the intricate relationship between the poet’s life and her poetry, between the life of her mind and the voice of her poems. Now, Cynthia Griffin Wolff (author of the highly acclaimed A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton) gives us a brilliantly literary biography of Emily Dickinson that reveals this relationship through a rich, comprehensive understanding of Dickinson herself and a new, extraordinarily illuminating reading of her exquisite yet often daunting poems.

A massively detailed, illustrated biography of Emily Dickinson.

General facts about the Gilberts, among the earliest colonists in Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine.

Nathaniel Dickinson, son of John Dickinson and Elizabeth, was christened 3 May 1601 in Billingsborough, Lincolnshire, England. He married Anna, widow of William Gull, 27 November 1623. They had twelve children. He died 16 June 1676 in Hadley, Massachusetts. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio and New York.

Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson is an encyclopedic guide to the life and works of Emily Dickinson, one of the most famous and widely studied American poets of the 19th century.

John Dickinson’s entry into public life in Delaware and Pennsylvania is a highlight of the ninety-eight documents written over four years printed in Volume Two of The Complete Writings and Selected Correspondence of John Dickinson. The volume opens with Dickinson’s legal notes as he established himself as one of the most prominent and learned lawyers in colonial British North America. His cases dealt with, among other issues, interpretation of wills, disputes over land, sailors suing for wages, a fine on a Quaker who refused military service, and a notorious murder in a prominent Philadelphia family. It concludes with Dickinson offering thoughtful advice to a young man who was considering the arduous work in becoming a lawyer. “I think,” he wrote, “those must be infinitely the most happy, whose fatigues are softend by a conscious Benevolence of mind wishing & endeavouring to [pro]mote the Happiness of others as well as their own.” Dickinson’s hard work on behalf of his clients brought him success in other areas of his public life. In October 1759, he was elected to his first public position as a representative for Kent County, Del., the following year he was elevated to the position of speaker, and in 1762, he became a representative for Philadelphia County, Pa. As a legislator in two colonies, learning his craft as a global war unfolded, he contributed to bills on military and defense, Indian relations, infrastructure improvements and city management, and served on various committees. The death of George II occasioned debates over laws and judges, in which Dickinson participated. This era concludes with Dickinson playing a central role in managing the unfolding Paxton Riots, in which frontiersmen massacred peaceful Indians and threatened the Quaker leadership of Pennsylvania. In private, Dickinson lost the two most prominent male figures in his life in 1760, his father, Samuel, and soon thereafter, his mentor, colleague, and friend, John Moland. In honor of Moland, Dickinson published a poem and became a proxy head to Moland’s large family. Though his extant correspondence during this period is small, he exchanged letters with Mary Cadwalader Dickinson, Israel Pemberton, William Allason, George Read, Thomas McKean, and others. Perhaps most significant, he wrote a lengthy, unpublished essay on the flag-of-truce trade and also maintained commonplace books as he considered his place within the British Empire, opening up the next phase in Dickinson’s life as a leader of the resistance against Britain. Published by the University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

"Includes new historical research that provides the most thorough nineteenth-century contextualization of Dickinson in relation to religion, race, gender, sexuality, age, class, ecology, and place, and historically grounded contexts for thinking about publication, media, education, and reading practices. Features original interpretations of Dickinson's compositional practices, reception, and influence including chapters on translations of Dickinson's work into visual arts, musical composition, international cultural practices, popular culture, and other languages. Considers Dickinson's composition and circulation of poems, her environmental ecology, her responses to the Civil War, and her relation to publishing and media." --