Emily Dickinson a cut-up?
Jan 24th, 2011 by houghtonmodern
The summer of 2010 saw the debut of the department’s Dickinson portal, one-stop shopping for those who want to discover Dickinson-related resources at Harvard. The portal announced the beginning of a project to digitize books in the Dickinson Family Library, to provide wider access to these often-fragile volumes. Three new titles have just been added, bring the total to six:
- EDR 445 Dana, Charles Anderson, 1819-1897, ed. The household book of poetry…sixth edition. New York & London, 1860. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/21564366
- EDR 566 Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870. The old curiosity shop, and other tales… Philadelphia, 1842. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/21566047
- EDR 523 Milton, John, 1608-1674. Paradise lost… Philadelphia, 1819.http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/21567348
The books in the Dickinson Family Library exhibit a variety of marks of use: corners folded; entire pages folded vertically; underlinings; vertical marks in the margins; small x-es; and, very occasionally, cut-outs.
Here is an example of the latter, from chapter 54 of Dickens’s Master Humphrey’s Clock (in EDR 566): http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/21566047?n=291&printThumbnails=no
Dickinson attached this illustration, with another cut from page 359, to a poem she sent her sister-in-law Susan around 1859:
Interestingly, the book bears the ownership inscription of the poet’s father, Edward Dickinson; if the dating of the poem is correct, his daughter felt free to cut snippets from his books while he was around to discover her biblio-vandalism. Or perhaps the poet knew he wouldn’t be reading a novel?
To browse the digital Dickinson Family Library quickly, go to the finding aid for the collection and click on the tab “Digital Content.” New volumes are added on an irregular basis, but will be announced here. Next to appear: Emily Dickinson’s Bible (EDR 8)!
Wonderful news! Thank you! ~Barbara Kelly
This is a wonderful new resource for Dickinson scholars. I congratulate Leslie Morris and the Houghton for making its holdings so generally available and for the accompanying informative details of how Dickinson used her reading materials.
[…] Here is a link to an interesting post that shows an example of Dickinson’s surprising use of her family’s books. Their library also contains markings and comments by ED. […]
Dear Leslie, et.al.
I look forward to perusing the Emerson essays and poems that Dickinson used, as well as some of the family Bibles.
Thank you for these resources!
I really enjoyed seeing this and I look forward to exploring the links. – Lois
Amazing. Thank you!
Our work is poles apart in length, but Dickinson is my favorite, and I first found out about her collage tendencies in the book A Summer of Hummingbirds, by Christopher Benfey.
Such a grand way into the brain of Dickinson the reader. She was so much what she read — and more!
Thank you, Leslie and all for this grand opportunity to see further into Emily’s ever surprising ‘wider than the Sky’ brain.
Thanks!