Poems by Emily Dickinson - Three Series, Complete

With an Introductory Excerpt by Martha Dickinson Bianchi

Emily Dickinson, Mabel Loomis Todd, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Mabel Loomis Todd, Thomas Wentworth Higginson

• Publisher: Ragged Hand
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781473374546
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Women in Poetry
• Index: Literature

First published in 1890, this volume contains all three series of "Poems by Emily Dickinson", an extensive collection of Dickinson's very best poetry. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet commonly hailed as being among the most important figures in American poetry. Not much is known about her personal life, but evidence suggests that this is because she spent most of her time isolated from other people. Those who lived around her claimed that she took to wearing only white apparel and rarely left her bedroom in her later years. Despite being a prolific writer who produced a corpus of over 1, 800 poems, only 10 were published during her lifetime. Her poetry was considered unusual for her time, incorporating a variety of odd features and breaking many of the conventional rules. Contents include: "First Series - I. Life, II. Love, III. Nature, IV. Time and Eternity", "Second Series - I. Life, II. Love, III. Nature, IV. Time and Eternity"and "Third Series - I. Life, II. Love, III. Nature, IV. Time and Eternity." A fantastic collection of classic poetry not to be missed by fans and collectors of Dickinson's seminal work. Ragged Hand is proud to be republishing this collection of classic poetry now complete with an introductory excerpt by Martha Dickinson Bianchi.

SECOND SERIES

PREFACE

The eagerness with which the first volume of Emily Dickinson's poems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern artificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the qualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest themes,—life and love and death. That "irresistible needle-touch," as one of her best critics has called it, piercing at once the very core of a thought, has found a response as wide and sympathetic as it has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling power. This second volume, while open to the same criticism as to form with its predecessor, shows also the same shining beauties.

Although Emily Dickinson had been in the habit of sending occasional poems to friends and correspondents, the full extent of her writing was by no means imagined by them. Her friend "H.H." must at least have suspected it, for in a letter dated 5th September, 1884, she wrote:—

My Dear Friend,—

What portfolios full of verses you must have! It is a cruel wrong to your "day and generation" that you will not give them light.

If such a thing should happen as that I should outlive you, I wish you would make me your literar...