Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was an American poet born on 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent nearly all of her life. She died there on 15 May 1886. She lived quietly, mostly within her family home, and in her later years she saw few visitors, yet she kept up warm and witty friendships through letters.

Dickinson wrote nearly eighteen hundred poems, but only a handful appeared in print during her lifetime. After her death her sister found the poems she had carefully gathered and sewn into small bundles. Her work is known for short lines, dashes, slant rhyme and startling images. She wrote about death, nature, faith, doubt, love and the workings of the mind. Today she is counted among the most original voices in American poetry.