Editing Emily: Players

Mary Landis Hampson

Background

"When Martha [Dickinson Bianchi] died, first Alfred Hampson, then his wife Mary, succeeded her as keeper of Emily's flame and the Dickinson family secrets. All three were very selective in admitting visitors to the house or permitting access to its archive. They are, in fact, suspected of having destroyed documents inconsistent with the image they wished to propagate of Dickinson respectability and family harmony.

"In 1951 Alfred Hampson sold many Dickinson books and manuscripts, as well as some furniture associated with Emily, to a Harvard alumnus who donated them to the Houghton Library. However, much remained, and Mary, who lived until 1988, created the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust to administer the house and its furnishings in Martha's memory. She also bequeathed all the remaining books and manuscripts, the latter to be known as the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Papers, to Brown University. To these Professor Barton St. Armand has begun adding the Dickinson manuscripts and memorabilia which Mary had given him."

Control

"Although George Whicher wanted to publish a collected edition of Emily Dickinson poems after Madame Bianchi's death, Mary Landis Hampson's power over the Little, Brown copyrights enabled her to prevent Whicher's planned book by merely declining to give permission (William Jackson, qtd. in McCarthy, letter to Mary Landis Hampson, 23 June 1952)." [Source: The Emily Dickinson Journal, "To Market: The Dickinson Copyright Wars" by Elizabeth Horan, n. 21]

Profitable Inheritance

"When the Harvard variorum Poems of Emily Dickinson appeared, its royalty rate at 10%, 1.25% went to Little, Brown, 8.75% went to Mary Landis Hampson, a friend of Madame Bianchi and Alfred Hampson's who had married the latter in 1947, while editor Thomas Johnson was to receive no royalties for his work on the poems (McCarthy, letter to T. J. Wilson, 28 July 1955). Little, Brown and Co. wanted to respect Harper's copyright on poems that Bingham had edited, but Mary Landis Hampson successfully fought off the challenge (McCarthy for Mary Landis Hampson, letter to Thornhill, 16 Oct. 1956)." [Source: The Emily Dickinson Journal, "To Market: The Dickinson Copyright Wars" by Elizabeth Horan, n. 21]