Letters of Emily Dickinson - Hardcover

Emily Dickinson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841597899 ISBN 13: 9781841597898

Publisher: Everyman Paperback Classics, 2011

Synopsis

The same inimitable voice and dazzling insights that make Emily Dickinson's poems immortal can be found in the whimsical, humorous, and often deeply moving letters she wrote to her family and friends throughout her life. The selection of letters presented here provides a fuller picture of the eccentric recluse of legend, showing how immersed in life she was: we see her tending her garden; baking bread; marking the marriages, births, and deaths of those she loved; reaching out for intellectual companionship; and, confessing her personal joys and sorrows. These letters, invaluable for the light they shed on their author, are, as well, a pure pleasure to read.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This one-volume selection is at last available in paperback. It provides crucial texts for the appreciation of American literature, women's experience in the nineteenth century, and literature in general.

Review:

[These letters] present us with as inward a view of one of God's rarer creatures as we are likely to be given...The letters themselves are as no others. The briefest line can be a mystery (and, when fathomed, a communion), the formal note a sign...If [these letters] are put alongside those of...Coleridge and Keats, they will present the most striking contrast in a poet's reactions and sensibilities. But they will stand there unashamed. (The Times)

She was no solemn bookworm destined to grow into a crabbed recluse, but a lively original creature, fully participating in the joys and despairs of a busy circle of friends and relatives...Here was a woman capable of the most intense emotion who was forced, or forced herself, to crystallize her feelings into words and phrases. The letters and poems are all of a piece. The letters, in fact, read sometimes like the raw materials of the poems. (Listener)

Emily Dickinson's letters are among the major treasures of American literature...[In] this one-volume selection...virtually everything of interest to the general reader or nonspecialist has been retained. (Library Journal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Everyman Paperback Classics
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1841597899
• ISBN 13: 9781841597898
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 242