![]() ![]() ![]() To fulfill her vision, Lavinia turned to Mabel Loomis Todd, the vivacious young wife of an Amherst College professor. Susan did not pursue publication quickly enough for Lavinia, and Higginson was otherwise occupied. Lavinia approached two of the poet’s friends–sister-in-law Susan Dickinson and mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson–for help. She later wrote: “I have had a ‘Joan of Arc’ feeling about Emilies poems from the first” (Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, December 23, 1890, as quoted in Bingham, p. Yet their sometimes competing contributions affirmed the vitality of Dickinson’s verse and ensured its immortality.Īfter discovering hundreds of Emily’s poems shortly after her death, the poet’s sister Lavinia resolved that the poetry must be published. None of the principal characters, all of whom had personal connections to the poet, ever expected to be involved in such an effort. What was done with them, how Dickinson went from unknown to internationally-famous poet, is a story fraught with emotional intensity, differing loyalties, and personal sacrifice. “The Single Hound, Poems of a Lifetime” (left) by Emily Dickinson, edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi, and “Poems” (right) by Emily Dickinson edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson ![]()
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