“Scandal and pathos abound” (The New Yorker) in this riveting account of the mother and daughter who brought Emily Dickinson’s genius to light. Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography • Finalist for the Plutarch Award
Despite Emily Dickinson’s renown, the story of the two women most responsible for her initial posthumous publication—Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham—has remained in the shadows of the archives. Utilizing hundreds of overlooked letters and diaries to weave together three unstoppable women, Julie Dobrow reveals the intrigue of Dickinson’s literary beginnings, including Mabel’s tumultuous affair with Emily’s brother, Austin Dickinson, controversial editorial decisions, and a battle over the right to define the so-called Belle of Amherst.
Julie Dobrow is a professor and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Tufts University. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine and the Huffington Post, among others. She lives outside of Boston.
Table of Contents
1886 Map of Amherst x
Preface xiii
Introduction One Fine Day in May (1886) 1
Chapter 1 Arriving in Amherst (1856-1881) 9
Chapter 2 Meeting and Courting the Dickinsons (1881-1882) 29
Chapter 3 Soaring Love and Seething Tensions (1883-1894) 53
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