---
product_id: 19428520
title: "The Life of Emily Dickinson"
brand: "richard b. sewall"
price: "€ 95.24"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 5
url: https://www.desertcart.gr/products/19428520-the-life-of-emily-dickinson
store_origin: GR
region: Greece
---

# The Life of Emily Dickinson

**Brand:** richard b. sewall
**Price:** € 95.24
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** The Life of Emily Dickinson by richard b. sewall
- **How much does it cost?** € 95.24 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
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## Description

The Life of Emily Dickinson

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A full and well-rounded picture of Emily Dickinson
*by D***N on June 26, 2017*

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.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Best
*by M***Y on November 30, 2024*

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

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Essential Book about Emily Dickinson
*by E***Y on October 5, 2015*

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.

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Life of Emily Dickinson
- The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
- My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Modern Library (Paperback))

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*Product available on Desertcart Greece*
*Store origin: GR*
*Last updated: 2026-04-23*