Emily Dickinson Facts
Emily Dickinson Facts
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| Interesting Emily Dickinson Facts: |
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| Emily's paternal grandfather Samuel Dickinson is credited with founding Amherst College where Emily attended for seven years. |
| Many of Emily Dickinson's poems were written in the second floor bedroom at the homestead. Some accounts have said that she never wrote anywhere else but they are fictitious rumors. |
| Only 11 of Emily Dickinson's poems were published during her lifetime. It is uncertain as to who submitted the poems for publication. It may have been Emily or friends or family. |
| The poems that were written by Emily Dickinson and published during her lifetime include "Magnum bonum" (1850), "Sic transit Gloria mund" (1852), "Nobody knows this little Rose" (1858), "I taste a liquor never brewed" (1861), "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" (1862), "Flowers - Well - if anybody" (1864), "These are the days when Birds come back" (1864), "Some keep the Sabbath going to church" (1864), "Blazing in Gold - and" (1864), "Success is counted sweetest" (1878), and "A narrow Fellow in / the grass" (1866). |
| It is estimated that Emily Dickinson wrote more than 1800 poems during her lifetime. |
| Most published poems were given their titles by someone other than the poet. Emily did not usually title her work, especially short lyrics. It is believed that the reason she did not submit more poetry for publication was because of the titles given to them by the publishers. |
| Emily lost several people who were very close to her, many of whom were very young, and their deaths affected her and her writing. |
| Emily Dickinson died on May 15th, 1886. She was only 55 when she died. She was buried in a white coffin and the funeral was held at the homestead. |
| After Emily Dickinson died her family found the massive collection of poetry she had written. They found 40 volumes that were handbound, containing nearly 1800 poems. |
| Emily's poetry first volume of poetry was published four years after she died. In 1955 her complete collection was published by Thomas H. Johnson. |
| Before she died Emily Dickinson made her sister Lavinia promise to burn all of her letters. Lavinia did burn most of it. Fortunately for poetry lovers there was no mention of burning the 40 volumes of poetry or any of the loose sheets in the locked chest, allowing them to be published. |
| Emily Dickinson did not follow the rules of capitalization or punctuation at the time. Because of this most of her work was edited before being published. |
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