My wars are laid away in books : the life of Emily Dickinson / Alfred Habegger

Includes bibliographical references (p. [660]-739) and indexes.

Machine generated contents note: Part One: 1636-1830 -- Chapter 1 Amherst and the Fathers -- Chapter 2 Emily Norcross of Monson -- Chapter 3 1826-1828: Winning Emily Norcross -- Chapter 4 1828-1830: Shifting Foundations -- Part Two: 1830-1840 -- Chapter 5 183o-1835: A Warm and Anxious Nest -- Chapter 6 1836-1840: The Fire-Stealers Girlhood -- Part Three: 1840-1847 -- Chapter 7 First Years on West Street -- Chapter 8 Amherst Academy -- Chapter 9 Death and Friendship -- Part Four: 1847-1852 -- Chapter 10 1847-1848: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary -- Chapter 11 1848-1850: First Drunkenness -- Chapter 12 t85o-1852: Somebodys Rev-e-ries -- Part Five: 1852-1858 -- Chapter 13 1852-1854: A Sheltered Life -- Chapter 14 1853-1855: News of the Ancient School of True Poets -- Chapter 15 i855-1858: Troubles and Riddles -- Part Six: 1858-1865 -- Chapter 16 ,858-,86o: Nothing's Small! -- Chapter 17 ,86o-,862: Carrying and Singing -- the Heart's Heavy Freight -- Chapter 18 1862-,865: The Fighting Years -- Part Seven: 1866-1886 -- Chapter 19 ,866-1870: Repose -- Chapter 20 i87o0-878: Wisdom That Won't Go Stale -- Chapter 21 1878-1884: Late Adventures in Friendship and Love -- Chapter 22 ,88o-,886: Exquisite Containment -- Family Charts -- Appendix I A Second Photograph of Emily Dickinson? -- Appendix 2 Standing Buildings Associated with Emily Dickinson -- Appendix 3 Deathsfrom Consumption (Tuberculosis) -- Appendix 4 Emily Dickinson's Legal Signatures -- Appendix 5 Summary of Corrected Dates of Letters -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Index of First Lines to Poems -- Index -- Permissions and Photo Credits.

Emily Dickinson, probably the most loved and certainly the greatest of American poets, continues to be seen as the most elusive. One reason she has become a timeless icon of mystery for many readers is that her developmental phases have not been clarified. In this exhaustively researched biography, Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson's growth a richly contextualized story of genius in the process of formation and then in the act of overwhelming production. Building on the work of former and contemporary scholars, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books brings to light a wide range of new material from legal archives, congregational records, contemporary women's writing, and previously unpublished fragments of Dickinson's own letters. Habegger discovers the best available answers to the pressing questions about the poet: Was she lesbian? Who was the person she evidently loved? Why did she refuse to publish and why was this refusal so integral an aspect of her work? Habegger also illuminates many of the essential connection sin Dickinson's story: between the decay of doctrinal Protestantism and the emergence of her riddling lyric vision; between her father's political isolation after the Whig Party's collapse and her private poetic vocation; between her frustrated quest for human intimacy and the tuning of her uniquely seductive voice. The definitive treatment of Dickinson's life and times, and of her poetic development,My Wars Are Laid Away in Booksshows how she could be both a woman of her era and a timeless creator. Although many aspects of her life and work will always elude scrutiny, her living, changing profile at least comes into focus in this meticulous and magisterial biography.