Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 . May 15, 1886) was an American poet.
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties,
she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst
Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric
by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance
to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were
therefore carried out by correspondence. Although Dickinson was a prolific private
poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during
her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered
significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time.
Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines,
typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization
and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two
recurring topics in letters to her friends. Although most of her acquaintances were
probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886.when
Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems.that the breadth of
Dickinson's work became apparent. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890
by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of
whom heavily edited the content. A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her
poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily Dickinson
was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism
of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider
Dickinson to be a major American poet.

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