The Death of Emily Dickinson
May 15, 1886
Emily Dickinson Obituary, written by Susan Gilbert Dickinson, her sister-in-law.
Mabel Loomis Todd
Began copying MSS by November, 1887 at Lavinia's request.
Typewriter transcripts
The Virtual Typewriter Museum has pictures and descriptions of both the machines used by Mabel Todd Loomis to create transcripts of Dickinson's manuscripts.
Harriet Graves
I couldn't find the author of the following article but it contains quite a discussion of Harriet Graves' work in the copying of the text for the poem:
Editing a Transcript of a Version of a Poem, "Rearrange a 'Wife's' affection!"
Handcopying Continues
Harriet Graves only lasted about 5 months (March-July 1889). In that time she copied close to 180 poems -- 141 transcripts extant. After Graves' departure, Mabel Loomis Todd began to also copy by hand.
Harriet Graves
Handwriting Sample
Scanned image from The Editing of Emily Dickinson, R.W. Franklin, ??. |
Mabel Loomis Todd
Handwriting Sample
Scanned image from The Editing of Emily Dickinson, R.W. Franklin, ??. |
Poems by Emily Dickinson
Published November 12, 1890
First Series. Link is to "Poems by Emily Dickinson (American Verse Project of the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative). This searchable site includes all three of the Dickinson volumes first published by Little, Brown."
Critical reviews
William Dean Howells was just about the only one who thought Dickinson was on to something. The link is to the "Editor's Study" by Howells. Start on page 318, lower righthand corner (IV.).
Title: Harper's new monthly magazine. / Volume 82, Issue 488
Publisher: Harper & Bros. Publication Date: January, 1891 City: New York
 Available from: Cornell University Library's contributions to Making of America (MOA), a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
Mabel Loomis Todd Indexing Project
During July - August, 1891, Mabel Loomis Todd indexed all of the transcripts -- over 1000! After sorting the poems into A, B, and C groups (based on publishing merit), she then loosely alphabetized them. These she then recorded in a leatherbound notebook (Amherst?). She also recorded the packet or envelope number with each and the first line of the poem (from the transcript).
"Before the proof began ... I made a complete alphabetical index of everything already copied, not including either published volume. This list made nearly one thousand. Then I catalogued the original manuscripts, so that I can find one at a moment's notice."Quoted from her mother's journal (Sept. 20, 1891) by Millicent Todd Bingham, Ancestor's Brocades: The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson (NY: Harper, 1945), p. 134.
Packet mutilation
sometime after indexing
Letters of Emily Dickinson
Published November 21, 1894
T.W. Higginson no longer co-editor
Image © 1999-2002 www.arttoday.com
Used with permission*
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pis&GRid=4841&PIgrid=4841&PIcrid=90841&PIpi=812192&
Only printer's copy to survive
Mabel Loomis Todd Quits
Court battle with Lavinia.
The link is to The single hound; poems of a lifetime. With an introduction by her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the Celebration of Women Writers through the combined work of: Steven van Leeuwen and Mary Mark Ockerbloom.
Further Poems
of Emily Dickinson
Withheld from Publication
by Her Sister Lavinia
1929
Emily Dickinson Face to Face:
Unpublished Letters
with Notes and Reminisces
1932
Unpublished Poems
of Emily Dickinson
1935
Bolts of Melody:
New Poems of
Emily Dickinson
1945
The Complete Poems
of Emily Dickinson
1960
Final Harvest:
Emily Dickinson's Poems
1962 |
