Emily Dickinson

Biography

Emily Dickinson was born on 10, December, 1830 in Amherst, in western Massachusetts, and died on 15, May ,1886. Her parents were Edward Dickinson (1803-1874) and Emily Norcross Dickinson (1804-1882). The family included three children: Austin (1828-1895), Emily, and Lavinia (1833-1899) . The Dickinsons were well-off and well-educated. Both Edward and Austin were college graduates, leaders in the community and of amherst college. Edward Dickinson was a representative to state and national legislatures. Emily had a strong secondary education and a year of college at South Hadley Female Seminary .

The poet was born in, and died in, a house called the homestead, built by her grandfather Samuel Dickinson in 1813. This house was sold out of the family, however, in 1833, and not purchased again by Edward Dickinson intill 1855; so most of the emily younger years were lived in the house.


After her school years, Emily Dickinson lived in the family home for the rest of her life. She cared for her parents in their later years,with her sister Lavinia, who also stayed at home for her entire life. Neither sister married. The extended Dickinson family included Austin's wife Susan Huntington Gilbert, who lived for many years next door in the house called The Evergreens, and Susan and Austin's three children.


She compiled a handcript record of nearly 1,800 poems, along with many letters. In or around 1858 she began to keep manuscript books of her poetry, the "fascicles". In the early 1860s she produced hundreds of poems each year. In 1864 and 1865, failing eyesight, which impelled her to make two extended visits to Cambridge, Massachusetts for medical treatment, slowed her production of handscript books. But her production of handcripts continued at a slower pace until her last illnesses in 1885-86.After that illnesses she with a kidney desease.