The Life of Emily Dickinson

Biographers generally avoid deep psychological analyses of their subjects, especially those subjects that lived before our modern way of understanding the mind. But this huge detailed biography of Emily Dickinson is permeated with psychological analysis – and it is extremely well done. The conclusions stick closely to the evidence and Richard Sewall, who has been criticized for too much hedging on his conclusions, does what seems ideal to me. He gives various options for understanding Dickinson and some of the poems and, if the evidence is strong enough, comes to a stronger conclusion. Any more generalized or firm conclusions about this incredibly complex person would be far too speculative. Combining Dickinson’s family, friends, potential publishers, cultural background, and many of her poems, Sewall gives us as complete a picture of this reclusive literary genius as one will find. For a subject who rarely ventured outside Amherst, Sewall does all a biographer can do – provide the deep context of personal relationships and influences that make Dickinson’s poetry so unique.The first “volume” in this book is not specifically about Dickinson herself but about her family. Individual chapters focus on her father, mother, brother, sister and her New England background. Much is made of the “war between the houses” which refers to the fact that Emily’s brother Austin and his wife Susan moved next door to the Dickinson family home. After a positive beginning the relationship between Susan and the rest of the family became difficult, spurred on by brother Austin’s long affair with Mabel Todd who subsequently became instrumental in publishing Dickinson’s poems after her death. We now know that Susan Dickinson’s life may have been more complicated than Sewall presents. Nevertheless, the point of these 240 pages of context is to show how the isolated Emily, as she is usually perceived, fit into the larger framework of life around her. Sewall does this well. The reader will find this first section not just useful in understanding Emily Dickinson but an insightful study of life in mid-19th century New England.The second “volume” deals directly with Emily herself. Sewall ties many of Emily’s poems into the events in her life, from her educational experiences to her interesting (and one-sided) relationship with two of her potential publishers, Samuel Bowles and Thomas Higginson. Emily Dickinson did not have many personal relationships or friends but Sewall spells out all of them in detail, all the while bringing in Dickinson’s poems sent to them in letters or sent in hopes of publication. The combination of the poetry and the chronological development of Emily’s life helps the reader understand both the poems and the source of many of them.After 700 plus pages (including about 75 pages of appendices) Sewall admits that Emily Dickinson is still a psychological enigma. But the reader will get as detailed and complete a picture of this isolated literary genius as he or she will find anywhere. The book is a tribute to one of America’s most original minds. This is a complete, well-written, and insightful discussion of Emily Dickinson.

This is the only really first-rate bio, and it's quite readable. If you're serious about ED, you need to own this!

Robert B. Sewall is one of the two heroes of Emily Dickinson scholarship. (Thomas H. Johnson is the other.) He pulled together all the information he could find about her life and wrote a magisterial biography.He got a lot wrong, in large part because he was a man writing with the prejudices of his time. And, as Lyndall Gordon points out in her biography, "Lives Like Loaded Guns," he got mentally seduced by Millicent Todd Bingham, the daughter of ED's brother's mistress, Mabel Todd, into writing horrible and untrue statements about Austin' wife and ED's close friend, Susan.But if you're interested in ED, this book essential, not only because it has so much useful information, but also because it strongly colored ED scholarship.

There have been two programs on the television lately about Emily Dickinson. One, a documentary, seemed to be mostly concerned with Dickinson's sexual orientation; the other was a weird fantasy. I am not a scholar, nor a literature major, nor even a fan of Emily Dickinson's. I am just a casual viewer who was perturbed by the representations I was seeing and wanted to find the truth. Robert Sewall's book is not the newest, but I chose it because the author set out to address precisely the issue that concerned me, without undue speculation or psychoanalysis.Sewall attempts to focus Emily Dickinson through primary sources, mostly letters. This may be the best way to uncover the truth, but there are obvious problems. Letters are by nature ephemeral, and what survives depends on the recipient's keeping the letters, making them available, and not redacting them. Letters to Emily Dickinson were destroyed by her request after her death and so are unavailable. It also depends on who wrote to whom. So, there is a lot from Mable Loomis Todd, Dickinson's brother's long time mistress, and almost nothing from Sue Gilbert Dickinson, his wife. Mable Loomis Todd says vicious things about Sue Dickinson, most, if not all, of which are unsubstantiated. Presumably, she got these nasty stories from Austin Dickinson, who was embittered by his marriage. For instance, it is clear from the early letters of Austin Dickinson that he actively courted Susan Gilbert, not the other way around.This is not a biography. That is, it is not a chronological narrative of Emily Dickinson's life. It is actually presented as two volumes. I found the first volume to be a particularly difficult read. It attempts to answer the question of how a genius arose in 19th century Amherst by examining the people around her. Each person gets his own chapter. The names repeat through the generations and through the family, and these are over-lapping accounts. To me, the question of the source of Dickinson's genius is a patronizing one. Of all the things that are debatable about Dickinson, no one doubts her intelligence, sensitivity, wit, or creativity. Also, she was educated beyond the domestic arts, especially in language and the natural sciences. Sewall even cites the language text book in use at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke, which helps to explain Dickinson's idiosyncratic punctuation.The second volume I found more accessible. By now, the names and personages are familiar, and the early chapters are chronological.So, what have I learned? Was Emily Dickinson a lesbian? Probably not. She never married, but spinsterhood was hardly unique. If she had married, there would probably be no poetry (see Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf). What about the second program? Was this a fantasy spun from the myth of Emily Dickinson? Yes. Her father was not a tyrant. Her family was close knit, if dysfunctional. She had travelled when younger. The people closest to her were adamant that Emily had suffered no failure in love that would account for her isolation. Besides, Dickinson was quite capable of seeing people she wanted to see. Dickinson was sensitive and suffered the loss of family members and friends. It seems to me just as likely that the less she moved in society, the less she felt the need to do so. Dickinson was well aware of the "myth" of the little recluse in white. Clearly, she was witty and tended to melodrama. She might even have been complicit in constructing the myth. What about her writing? Her poetry is full of metaphor and hyperbole, and her prose is as elusive as her poems. It is risky to read anything literal or auto-biographical into her writings.Now, dear reader, I have saved you 751 pages of dense prose. If you do read this book, be forewarned that you may start thinking and speaking in Emily Dickinson's preferred 8 + 6 meter.

This is still the best biographical introduction to the poet Emily Dickinson but it was written in the l970s and tends to include only material denigrating Susan Dickinson from bystanders from that era. Since Sewall's book, more information about the relationship between Emily and Susan has been uncovered and sheds new light on the subject. In addition, Sewall leaned heavily on material provided by Mabel Loomis Todd about Susan that is - shall we say - one-sided. The book is particularly strong on Emily Dickinson's forbears, family and early years and for this and more I highly recommend it. The chapters on Otis Lord and Samuel Bowles are particularly revealing.