San Francisco Public Library

My wars are laid away in books, the life of Emily Dickinson, Alfred Habegger

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. [660]-739) and indexes

individual biography

platesillustrationsgenealogical tables

index present

non fiction

My wars are laid away in books

bibliography

Alfred Habegger

the life of Emily Dickinson

"Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson's growth - a story of genius in the process of formation and then in the act of overwhelming production." "Building on the work of former and contemporary scholars, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books brings to light a wide range of new material from legal archives, congregational records, contemporary women's writing, and previously unpublished fragments of Dickinson's own letters. Habegger discovers the best available answers to the pressing questions about the poet: Was she lesbian? Who was the person she evidently loved? Why did she refuse to publish, and why was this refusal so integral an aspect of her work? Habegger also illuminates many of the essential connections in Dickinson's story: between the decay of doctrinal Protestantism and the emergence of her riddling lyric vision; between her father's political isolation after the Whig Party's collapse and her private poetic vocation; between her frustrated quest for human intimacy and the tuning of her uniquely seductive voice."--Jacket

Part one, 1636-1830: Amherst and the fathers -- Emily Norcross of Monson -- 1826-1828: winning Emily Norcross -- 1828-1830: shifting foundations -- Part two, 1830-1840: 1830-1835: a warm and anxious nest -- 1836-1840: the fire-stealer's girlhood -- Part three, 1840-1847: First years on West Street -- Amherst Academy -- Death and friendship -- Part four, 1847-1852: 1847-1848: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary -- 1848-1850: first drunkenness -- 1850-1852: somebody's rev-e-ries -- Part five, 1852-1858: 1852-1854: a sheltered life -- 1853-1855: news of the ancient school of true poets -- 1855-1858: troubles and riddles -- Part six, 1858-1865: 1858-1860: nothing's small -- 1860-1862: carrying and singing the heart's heavy freight -- 1862-1865: the fighting years -- Part seven, 1866-1886: 1866-1870: repose -- 1870-1878: wisdom that won't go stale -- 1878-1884: late adventures in friendship and love -- 1880-1886: exquisite containment -- Family charts -- Appendices: A second photography of Emily Dickinson? -- Standing buildings associated with Emily Dickinson -- Deaths from consumption (tuberculosis) -- Emily Dickinson's legal signatures -- Summary of corrected dates of letters