This is how Emily described herself in an 1862 letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, as he asked her for a picture, but she had none.
"I am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur–and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the guest leaves."
In case TWH is unfamiliar to some, he and Mabel Loomis Todd, edited the 1st edition of her poetry in 1890. Her brother, William Austin, was having a lengthy affair with Mabel, the so called "War between the Houses". Both homes knew of it, but Mabel's husband David Peck Todd was an Astronomer at Amherst College where Austin was treasurer, he did not want to risk his job I suppose.
TWH was also a member of John Brown's "Secret Six".
Emily withdrew from society interaction at about age 30. She never lived outside her Father's home except when she had to travel to Boston to see an eye specialist, then she stayed with her Norcross cousins. She feared going blind so she packaged her poems, so many to a fascicle for preservation. Harvard University owns about 1/2 her manuscripts, and the Robert Frost library in Amherst owns about 1/2, with some private hands.
Emily never married, nor did her sister Lavinia. Emily's reclusive nature seems in part, maybe mostly, due to what would be diagnosed today as Panic or Anxiety attacks, unable to cope with the outside world. MLT described her as somewhat of a genius. How else? She died at age 55 from Brights disease. What a historical masterpiece it would have been if her voice had been recorded!
Prior to the great T.H. Johnson edition of her poems, her editors mainly removed the --- (dashes) she used for emphasis/punctuation. She never used titles, that was an editor's mark. What a brilliant mind she possessed.
"I am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur–and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the guest leaves."
In case TWH is unfamiliar to some, he and Mabel Loomis Todd, edited the 1st edition of her poetry in 1890. Her brother, William Austin, was having a lengthy affair with Mabel, the so called "War between the Houses". Both homes knew of it, but Mabel's husband David Peck Todd was an Astronomer at Amherst College where Austin was treasurer, he did not want to risk his job I suppose.
TWH was also a member of John Brown's "Secret Six".
Emily withdrew from society interaction at about age 30. She never lived outside her Father's home except when she had to travel to Boston to see an eye specialist, then she stayed with her Norcross cousins. She feared going blind so she packaged her poems, so many to a fascicle for preservation. Harvard University owns about 1/2 her manuscripts, and the Robert Frost library in Amherst owns about 1/2, with some private hands.
Emily never married, nor did her sister Lavinia. Emily's reclusive nature seems in part, maybe mostly, due to what would be diagnosed today as Panic or Anxiety attacks, unable to cope with the outside world. MLT described her as somewhat of a genius. How else? She died at age 55 from Brights disease. What a historical masterpiece it would have been if her voice had been recorded!
Prior to the great T.H. Johnson edition of her poems, her editors mainly removed the --- (dashes) she used for emphasis/punctuation. She never used titles, that was an editor's mark. What a brilliant mind she possessed.