Richard Benson Sewall (1908–2003)

750 pages later and we are left wondering at the stranger upstairs, listening through the door, slightly ajar. The biographer approaches Dickinson through time and place, presenting a thorough image of mid 19th Century Amherst, Mass, and the Dickinson family.

We then track Emily through her correspondence and friendships, but never revealing any more than she wanted. She remains elusive. We have her poems, and her choices, and it is troubling still to make sense of it all.

Still going through this one, but I don't see how it could be better. Strange approach - first half of the book is only indirectly about Emily, as it studies her family members first, but it works.

She is, of course, the stereotypical stay-at-home poetess, but it seems that nothing could have made her thoughts any larger than they were ... "Consider the lilies is the only commandment I ever obeyed."

There speaks a true outlaw.

Impressive and deeply detailed, this biography approaches Emily Dickinson's life on a slant, much as she presented her own life to her friends and family in her letters. Most o the biography centers on Dikinson's friends and family and the letters and poems that she wrote them.

It will shatter your belief in the many myths of Dickinson's life. Much is still open to debate, but after reading this biography I believe that Dickinson was not a recluse because she lost a lover or was subjugated by show more her father. It was what we would call today a lifestyle choice, brought on by her decision to be a poet and the lack of any life-changing occurrence when she was of marrying age. show less

An extremely helpful volume in that it includes letters from Emily, Lavinia and Austin that appear here in full for the first time. Also valuable are the references to Emily's early reading of the Bible and the mysterious "terror since September." This is the first lengthy treatment of the role Joseph Bardwell Lyman played in the lives of the Dickinsons, one that spanned thirty years. The text of this volume was reprinted from "The Massachusetts Review," Autumn 1965.