Poems
Almost none of Dickinson's poems were published in her lifetime, and the ones that appeared were edited to fit contemporary taste. She wrote short, compressed lyrics about death, nature, faith and the mind, using dashes and capital letters in ways that still look modern.
The poems are difficult in a particular way: they omit context and expect the reader to fill it in. Read a few at a time, and do not worry about the ones that resist you. The 1890 edition is the historical text; later editions restore her punctuation, and the difference matters.
Public-domain status
First published in 1890. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; Emily Dickinson died in 1886, so this work has been free to republish there since 1957.
Read the text free
- Project Gutenberg, ebook no. 12242 — plain text, EPUB and Kindle, checked by us
- Internet Archive — scanned editions and free audiobooks
- Open Library — edition history and borrowable copies
Keep reading
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- The Canterbury Tales — Geoffrey Chaucer, 1400
- Troilus and Criseyde — Geoffrey Chaucer, 1385
- Childe Harold's Pilgrimage — Lord Byron, 1812
- Reading lists — 19 ways through the collection
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