20 Sep 2010 [ Prev | Next ]

American Lit Podcast #7 Emily Dickinson -- Publication History

I've numbered the Scarlet Letter podcasts so as to keep them consecutive, but I am assigning this Emily Dickinson podcast to go along with today's assigned poems. Please excuse the minor discrepancy in the numbering.

The first volume edited by Mrs. Todd and Colonel Higginson sold extremely well, with multiple runs selling out and more books being printed out several times in a few months. Within a few years, a second volume of poems, two-volume collection of Emily's letters (presumably the ones Emily had sent to other people, who dug them out of their own drawers and volunteered them to the editors now that their author was famous), and a third volume, with Mabel Loomis Todd now working on her own, without Colonel Higginson's help.

Then something happened that reminds us what life was like in the days before word processors or photocopiers.

Emily's sister Lavnia, and Mabel, the former mistress of Austin, the brother of Emily and Lavinia, had a falling out. Before Austin died, he asked Lavinia to will a tract of land to Mabel. After Austin died, Lavinia went to court, to undo that action, and the court ruled in Lavinia's favor.

But what matters for us is that the pile of Emily Dickinson's hand-written poems, many of which were still unpublished - hundreds had been published by now, but she wrote over a thousand - this physical stack of unpublished poems got split up, with Lavinia (Emily's sister) taking some, and Mabel (the mistress of Emily's dead brother) taking the other. For the next sixty years or so, these separate stacks were sorted and edited and cataloged and treated in different ways, by different editors.

Prediscussion Podcast 7.mp3


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13 Comments

Valerie Susa said:

Emily was an amazing writer, but unfortunately didn't get the recognigtion she deserved until after her death....

Michael McCullough said:

I love the explicit detail of her writing, how the subject matter is simplistic, and yet so descriptive. The poor woman sounds like me. I have a notebook in the car, one in the bedroom, two in the bathroom, some in the kitchen and dining room, have items written on napkins from restaurants, envelopes (where I also have my to do lists...

Were the dashes in her work for connecting verses of stanzas? Perhaps she used them to sort one thought from another. I only wish we had her insight of how the poems actually go together. I would like to think they would tell a story in a different light.

Michael McCullough said:

I love the explicit detail of her writing, how the subject matter is simplistic, and yet so descriptive. The poor woman sounds like me. I have a notebook in the car, one in the bedroom, two in the bathroom, some in the kitchen and dining room, have items written on napkins from restaurants, envelopes (where I also have my to do lists...

Were the dashes in her work for connecting verses of stanzas? Perhaps she used them to sort one thought from another. I only wish we had her insight of how the poems actually go together. I would like to think they would tell a story in a different light.

Benjamin Davis said:

The fact that Emily had no say in her poems can directly impact the impressions of her poems.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/BenjaminDavis/2010/09/how-much-was-lost-through-publication.html

Michael McCullough said:

Avid gardener, shy poet, and insanity...sounds like The Cat Lady!


http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MichaelMcCullough/2010/09/gardening-poetry-and-the-crazy-lady.html

Emily Dickinson as an accidental poet and how this gives her poetry more meaning.

Alexi J. Swank said:

Cat fights over poems? Certainly not something you would expect for a recluse...

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AlexiSwank/2010/09/emily-dickinsons-a-real-attention-grabber.html

Megan Nelson said:

Emily Dickinson - an accidental poet...more like a violated poet....

Trespasser in the Midst..

I wrote about her amount of writing!

I wrote amount her amount of writing.

SinglesNet said:


Im glad to see that people are actually writing about this issue in such a smart way, showing us all different sides to it.

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