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MUSEUM CLOSED

The Emily Dickinson Museum is currently CLOSED to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Guided tours and public programs are suspended.

The Museum is offering virtual programming and resources.

The Emily Dickinson Museum is owned by the Trustees of Amherst College. Find more information on Amherst College’s actions.

Emily Dickinson daguerreotype portrait, showing the poet wearing a black dress and a ribbon on her neck

Welcome

The Homestead & The Evergreens

The Emily Dickinson Museum comprises two historic houses in the center of Amherst, Massachusetts associated with the poet Emily Dickinson and members of her family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Homestead was the birthplace and home of the poet Emily Dickinson.

The Evergreens, next door, was home to her brother Austin, his wife Susan, and their three children. Learn more about the Museum.

Tell It Slant Poetry Festival

Tell It Slant Poetry Festival

Virtual • September 14-20, 2020

BROWSE EVENTS AND SIGN UP »

A series of free virtual events, the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival celebrates the poetic legacy of Emily Dickinson and the contemporary creativity of the Pioneer Valley and beyond. Listen to readings by award-winning poets Ada Limón and Franny Choi, take a masterclass with Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, go on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dickinson collections at the Amherst College Library, participate in a marathon reading of all 1,789 Dickinson poems, and much more. SIGN UP »

News & Virtual Events

Statement in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter

Statement in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter

Today, in our distress over recent devastating events, we stand with our community and with the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice and inequality.
Amherst Arts Night Virtual Reading: October 1, 2020 at 6:30pm – REMOTE PROGRAM

Amherst Arts Night Virtual Reading: October 1, 2020 at 6:30pm – REMOTE PROGRAM

Our monthly remote poetry reading, featuring three poets every first Thursday
Matching Challenge Successful!

Matching Challenge Successful!

Every gift made between now and June 30, 2020, the Board of Governors will match dollar for dollar.
‘Before You Became Improbable,’ October 7-10, 2020

‘Before You Became Improbable,’ October 7-10, 2020

An immersive production that reimagines the meeting of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Emily's handwriting on paper and envelope on a desk

Poem of the Day

I felt my life with both my hands (357)

I felt my life with both my hands
To see if it was there –
I held my spirit to the Glass,
To prove it possibler –

I turned my Being round and round
And paused at every pound
To ask the Owner’s name –
For doubt, that I should know the sound –

I judged my features – jarred my hair –
I pushed my dimples by, and waited –
If they – twinkled back –
Conviction might, of me –

I told myself, “Take Courage, Friend –
That – was a former time –
But we might learn to like the Heaven,
As well as our Old Home”!

Posted in Poems by Emily Dickinson.

Education

People standing and listening during an event outside, with flowers in the foreground

At the Museum

Field trips, special tours, workshops, and fun for students of all ages.

A book of Emily Dickinson's poetry being held open by someone reading

In the Classroom

Lesson plans, resources for students, and more.

Manuscript of Emily's handwriting, not quite legible in photo

Research

Resources, bibliography, and more.

Digital Dickinson

The Emily Dickinson Museum welcomes inquiries from researchers and strives to support their work.

Research at the Museum can be useful not only to Dickinson scholars but also to researchers interested in nineteenth-century material culture, social and cultural trends, domestic life, architecture, and decorative arts.

The Museum does not own Dickinson manuscripts or family papers but works closely with the institutions that do. The two major repositories for Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts and family papers are Amherst College and Harvard University. Additional repositories exist at the Jones Library in Amherst, MA, Mt. Holyoke College, Yale, and the Boston Public Library.

To learn more about digital and electronic Dickinson research resources, visit these institutional archives:

Amherst CollegeBoston Public LibraryHarvard UniversityBrown UniversityJones Library, Amherst MA Mt. Holyoke CollegeYale University

daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson fading into pixels