Lavinia Norcross Dickinson (February 28, 1833 – August 31, 1899) was the younger sister of American poet
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...
.
Lavinia "Vinnie" Dickinson was instrumental in achieving the posthumous publication of her sister's poems after having discovered the forty-odd manuscripts in which Emily had collected her work. Despite promising her sister that she would destroy all correspondence and personal papers, Vinnie sought to have her sister's poetry edited and published by two of Emily's personal correspondents,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823May 9, 1911) was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with ...
and
Mabel Loomis Todd
Mabel Loomis Todd or Mabel Loomis (November 10, 1856 – October 14, 1932) was an American editor and writer. She is remembered as the editor of posthumously published editions of Emily Dickinson and also wrote several novels and logs of her ...
. Four years after Emily Dickinson's death, in 1890, ''Poems'' was published by
Roberts Brothers
Messrs. Roberts Brothers (1857–1898) were bookbinders and publishers in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1857 by Austin J. Roberts, John F. Roberts, and Lewis A. Roberts, the firm began publishing around the early 1860s. Ameri ...
, Boston.
[Sewall, p. xxviii] By the end of 1892, it had already been through eleven editions.
Vinnie was the youngest of the Dickinson siblings born to
Edward Dickinson
Edward Dickinson (January 1, 1803 – June 16, 1874) was an American politician from Massachusetts. He is also known as the father of the poet Emily Dickinson; their family home in Amherst, the Dickinson Homestead, is a museum dedicated to her.
...
and his wife
Emily Norcross in
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst () is a New England town, town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (althoug ...
. She never married and remained at the
Dickinson Homestead
The Emily Dickinson Museum is a historic house museum consisting of two houses: the Dickinson Homestead (also known as Emily Dickinson Home or Emily Dickinson House) and the Evergreens. The Dickinson Homestead was the birthplace and home from 1 ...
until her death.
In popular culture
* In
Apple TV+
Apple TV is a digital media player and microconsole developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is a small network appliance hardware that plays received media data such as video and audio to a television set or external display. Since its secon ...
's 2019–2021 series ''
Dickinson'',
Anna Baryshnikov
Anna Katerina Baryshnikov (born May 22, 1992) is an American actress. She had her breakout role as Sandy in the 2016 film '' Manchester by the Sea'' and was a series regular in the CBS sitcom '' Superior Donuts'' first season. From 2019 to 2021, ...
plays Dickinson in a comedic interpretation.
Notes
References
*Sewall, Richard B.. 1974. ''The Life of Emily Dickinson''. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. .
Further reading
*
*
*
People from Amherst, Massachusetts
Dickinson family
1833 births
1899 deaths
19th-century American poets
19th-century American women writers
{{US-bio-stub