The Life of Emily Dickinson

by Richard B. Sewall

Harvard University Press, 1994
Paper: 978-0-674-53080-5
Library of Congress Classification PS1541.Z5S42 1994
Dewey Decimal Classification 811.4

ABOUT THIS BOOK | REVIEWS

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Winner of the National Book Award, this massively detailed biography throws a light into the study of the brilliant poet. How did Emily Dickinson, from the small window over her desk, come to see a life that included the horror, exaltation and humor that lives her poetry? With abundance and impartiality, Richard B. Sewall shows us not just the poet nor the poetry, but the woman and her life.

See other books on: 1830-1886 | Dickinson, Emily | Emily Dickinson | Life | Poets, American
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Nearby on shelf for American literature / Individual authors / 19th century:

REVIEWS

[A] brilliant, massively detailed biography… Emily Dickinson emerges in these pages not only as…one of the two greatest poets of America’s nineteenth century, but as an extraordinary and credible human being… Sewall is an exemplary biographer and critic, perhaps in some ironic way the kind of friend Emily sought unsuccessfully in her life.
-- Robert Kirsch Los Angeles Times

By far the best and the most complete study of the poet’s life yet to be written, the result of nearly twenty years of work… The story of a long-standing affair between Austin Dickinson and a woman twenty-seven years younger than he, Mabel Loomis Todd…has not appeared in print before, and it makes an entrancing tale… A plainly authoritative work.
-- Richard Todd The Atlantic

Richard Sewall’s biographical vision of Emily Dickinson is as complete as human scholarship, ingenuity, stylistic pungency, and common sense can arrive at.
-- R. W. B. Lewis New Republic

Although Professor Sewall produces new material everywhere, it is in the account of the scandals that he has the most startling abundance, much of it in the form of primary documents… One must thank him for the fullness and impartiality of his presentation.
-- Irvin Ehrenpreis New York Review of Books