Emily Dickinson proved that brevity can be beautiful. Only now is her complete oeuvre--all 1,775 poems--available in its original form, uncorrupted by editorial revision, in one volume. Thomas H. Johnson, a longtime Dickinson scholar, arranged the poems in chronological order as far as could be ascertained (the dates for more than 100 are unknown). This organization allows a wide-angle view of Dickinson's poetic development, from the sometimes-clunky rhyme schemes of her juvenilia, including valentines she wrote in the early 1850s, to the gloomy, hell-obsessed writings from her last years. Quite a difference from requisite Dickinson entries in literary anthologies: "There's a certain Slant of light," "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!" and "I taste a liquor never brewed." The book was compiled from Thomas H. Johnson's hard-to-find variorum from 1955. While some explanatory notes would have been helpful, it's a prodigious collection, showcasing Dickinson's intractable obsession with nature, including death. Poem 1732, which alludes to the deaths of her father and a onetime suitor, illustrates her talent: My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. The musicality of her punctuation and the outright elegance of her style--akin to Christina Rossetti's hymns, although not nearly so religious--rescue the poems from their occasional abstruseness. The Complete Poems is especially refreshing because Dickinson didn't write for publication; only 11 of her verses appeared in magazines during her lifetime, and she had long-resigned herself to anonymity, or a "Barefoot-Rank," as she phrased it. This is the perfect volume for readers wishing to explore the works of one of America's first poets.

编辑推荐：
美国现代诗先驱者艾米莉•狄金森权威学术评传
索解诗人孤寂隐世的生活轨迹和神秘的内省世界
美国《图书馆杂志》年度最佳图书
艾米莉•狄金森大概是最受人喜爱的、最伟大的，同时始终也是最难以索解的美国诗人。在众多读者心中她之所以成为一个永恒的神秘偶像，是因为她的人生发展轨迹尚不清晰。
在这本刨根问底式的研究传记里，作者以前辈和当代学者的工作为基础，从法律档案、公理会记录、当代女性写作以及狄金森本人未发表的书札残简中，发掘出广泛的新材料，第一次从狄金森所在的时代语境中，彻底全面地描述了狄金森的成长，呈现出这个天才的形成过程及其旺盛的创作活动。
关于狄金森的几个需要迫切回答的问题，作者也找到了最可取的答案：她是同性恋吗？令她明显倾心的那个人是谁？她为什么拒绝发表作品？而这种拒绝何以跟她的创作密不可分？这本传记揭示出狄金森为何既是她所在时代的一个女性，同时又是一个超越时代的创造者。