"There is much here that is new and important to Dickinson studies. This is a book that needs to be published and needs to be widely read. Mitchell's work is extraordinarily thorough and careful; it is based on knowledgeable readings of Dickinson's poems and letters as well as on unusual depth in cultural and historical study. . . . Mitchell's witty skepticism aimed at Dickinson, at nineteenth-century pieties, and at the pieties of late twentieth-century Dickinson studies provides a refreshing tone for the field."—Cristanne Miller, coeditor of The Emily Dickinson Handbook
"A fresh, thought-provokng analysis of the best contextualization of the poet's work since the appearance of David S. Reynold's Beneath the American Renaissance."—Choice
"Monarch of Perception is a formidable, often brilliant volume. It is a study imbued with the author's deep cultural and historical understanding, one that should be read by anyone with a serious interest in the genius of Emily Dickinson."—Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin
"The reclusive Emily Dickinson and her poetry has been the thought-provoking subject of never-ending scrutiny. Mitchell here offers an exhaustive interpretation centered around the cultural (social, economic, political), religious, and biographical details of the poet's life--her home, her flowers, her publication (or lack thereof), her manuscripts and her handwriting. Minutely analyzing the effect of exterior forces on Dickinson's poetry, Mitchell concludes that the poet was more aware of outside realities than has been believed; she was, he claims, not so isolated from the facts of the world as scholars have previously suggested. This book may prove to be invaluable to Dickinson scholars, helping to illuminate this magnetic figure."—Library Journal
"There is much to admire in Domhnall Mitchell's study of Dickinson, not the least of which is the book's tone. Judicious and cautious, the book frequently reminds its readers that it not seeking a literal correlation between historical events and Dickinson's verse but rather a demonstration of how such events inform the language of poetry. . . . The book is enlivened and enriched by its breadth of sources. . . . Current cultural images and thought also are tapped to shed light on the singular achievement of Dickinson's art. . . . The book's greatest contribution is its exploration of the way sin which Dickinson inhabited multiple and simultaneous identities."—New England Quarterly