Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, to Emily Narcross Dickinson and Edward Dickinson. The poet was the second of three children, being a year younger than her brother, William Austin, and two years older than her sister, Lavinia. (Bloom 187). A lively, curious child, Emily described herself as being "small, like the wren" with "bold hair, like the chestnut bur" and large brown eyes "like the sherry in the glass, that …showed first 75 words of 672 total…

…showed last 75 words of 672 total…ll received by the public: it was reprinted 11 times within two years. But, the collection, and several subsequent ones, had been heavily edited, altering rhymes, shifting line arrangements, and making the language conform to conventional standards. It was not until 1955 that the scholar Thomas H. Johnson published the definitive, three-volume edition of 1,775 of her poems, maintaining the author's original punctuation. A complete collection of her letters, which supplemented her poetry, followed three years later. (Eberwein 178).