Birth of Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Categories: Emily Dickinson's Life and Legacy
All timeline stories.
1862, April 15
Emily Dickinson initiates a life-long correspondence with Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
1890, November 12
Mabel Loomis Todd publishes the first edition of Poems by Emily Dickinson (Boston: Roberts Brothers). The popular reception of this first edition of Poems initiates the publication of the Second Series (1891) and the Third Series (1896) of Poems. Mabel Loomis Todd, as editor, publishes Letters of Emily Dickinson in two volumes in 1894.
1833, 28 February
Birth of Lavinia Norcross Dickinson, Emily Dickinson’s sister
1863, September
From late April to November, 1864, Emily Dickinson spends many months in Cambridge, Massachusetts for treatment of a severe, disabling eye condition. During these two months with Boston’s leading ophthalmologist, Dr. Henry Willard Williams, Dickinson lives with her cousins Louisa and Frances Norcross in Cambridge.
“The eyes are as with you, sometimes easy, sometimes sad. I think they are not worse, nor do I think them better than when I came home. The snow light offends them, and the house is bright … Vinnie [is] good to me, but ‘cannot see why I don’t get well.’ This makes me think I am long sick, and this takes the ache to my eyes.” (Dickinson, L430, 433, 439)
1914
Emily’s niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi publishes poems sent by her aunt to her mother, Susan Gilbert Dickinson in A Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime. Martha Dickinson Bianchi would go on to publish many subsequent editions of her aunt’s poetry and letters, renewing the 20th century public’s interest in the life and work of Emily Dickinson.
1840, April
The Dickinsons purchase and move to a house (no longer standing) on North Pleasant Street in Amherst.
1865
The Civil War ends.
1965
The Homestead is purchased by Amherst College and is open to the public for tours. In 1991, The Evergreens is passed to a private testamentary trust, the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust, which began developing the house as a museum.
1840, September 7
Emily begins attending Amherst Academy with Lavinia.
“It was given to me by the Gods –
When I was a little Girl –
They give us Presents most – you know –
When we are new – and small. ” (Dickinson, Fr455)