Book Description
The Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson offers more than a passing glimpse at why the simple words of this Amherst poet live on and excite new readers each and every year. In the back of this volume the reader will find contemporaneous criticism which attempts to understand the surge of Dickinson’s popularity upon the posthumous publication of her poetry, as well as a discussion of her legacy—the reappropriation of her work into the genres of theater, dance, visual art, and of course, modern poetry.

Rachel Wetzsteon received her doctorate from Columbia University in twentieth-century literature. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University, and in 2001, she received the prestigious Witter Bynner Prize for poetry. Wetzsteon has published dozens of poems, as well as the volumes The Other Stars (1994) and Home and Away (1998).

FROM OUR EDITORS

Barnes & Noble Classics offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began life as an energetic, outgoing young woman who excelled as a student. However, in her mid-twenties she began to grow reclusive, and eventually she rarely descended from her room in her father￯﾿ﾽs house. She spent most of her time working on her poetry, largely without encouragement or real interest from her family and peers, and died at age fifty-five. Only a handful of her 1,775 poems had been published during her lifetime. When her poems finally appeared after her death, readers immediately recognized an artist whose immense depth and stylistic complexities would one day make her the most widely recognized female poet to write in the English language.

Dickinson￯﾿ﾽs poetry is remarkable for its tightly controlled emotional and intellectual energy. The longest poem covers less than two pages. Yet in theme and tone her writing reaches for the sublime as it charts the landscape of the human soul. A true innovator, Dickinson experimented freely with conventional rhythm and meter, and often used dashes, off rhymes, and unusual metaphors￯﾿ﾽtechniques that strongly influenced modern poetry. Dickinson￯﾿ﾽs idiosyncratic style, along with her deep resonance of thought and her observations about life and death, love and nature, and solitude and society, have firmly established her as one of America￯﾿ﾽs true poetic geniuses.

Rachel Wetzsteon is Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University. She has published two books of poems, The Other Stars and Home and Away.