Synopses & Reviews
Review
The appearance of Thomas H. Johnson's three-volume compilation of 'The Poems of Emily Dickinson,' the first authentic and really Complete Poems, is a major publishing event. A carefully collated and scholarly texthas been awaited, demanded, and needed for years. The present publication is a cumulative response to that demand. It is far more than an important revision; it is a rediscovery.
Review
A scholarly miracle...[This work], in three volumes, includes `variant readings critically compared with all known manuscripts'...[The editor] has brought sympathy and insight to bear in an illuminating way onseveral major Dickinsonian enigmas...The work comprises seventeen hundred and seventy-five poems, of which forty-one are known to be unpublished, in whole or in part.
Synopsis
Interest in Emily Dickinson has grown throughout the years until, now, in this three-volume edition Thomas Johnson presents the entire body of poems she is known to have written, 1775 in all. Here are the familiar "I never saw a Moor" and "Because I could not stop for Death," along with other less well-known poems, including forty-three never before published. Casual notes to friends and relatives which frequently accompany scraps of verse help to reveal the poet's enigmatic character. After keen analysis of the manuscripts, Johnson has arranged the poems in what is believed to be their chronological order, with variations and rejected versions of each poem following.
In his introduction, the editor discusses the stylistic and historical development of the poetic art of Emily Dickinson, and he considers the manuscripts and the history of the editing of the poems. A careful study of the poet's handwriting is illustrated with several facsimiles. The appendix contains valuable material on the recipients of the poems as well as a subject index and an index of first lines.