You can never go wrong buying a book by Polly Longsworth. Especially if it is about enigmatic,obstinate Emily Dickinson. Ms. Longsworth knows her subject as well as, or better than, any other active ED author. She has a common-sense approach to the famous ED obscurities and mysteries, born of decades of study and the influence of Richard Benson Sewall, Yale professor and creator of the Pulitzer-prize winning "Life of Emily Dickinson" in l974. That's the best biography of the poet we have or are ever likely to have. Polly writes well and this book shows off the Amherst of ED's era in ways that nicely complement the text and the poetry. She's also a nice person, kind to other ED researchers, both professional and amateur. Not everyone in that specialty qualifies for such a compliment. As a person who has written a play about Emily's survivors and how they struggled to get her poems published, I have had reason to correspond with lots of Dickinson buffs over a 20-year period. Polly and Sewall and William Luce, author of the play "Belle of Amherst" made room in their lives for letters from an unknown. Many others did not. This book is inexpensive, fortunately, but it is a grand addition to the library of any fan of Emily's. The fact that its creator is also a decent sort is just frosting on the cake.

I am a fan of old photographs, I pour over old family pictures with great zeal. The World of Emily Dickinson certainly feeds my passion. It is crammed full of wonderful pictures of the Dickinson family, their friends, and the changing and growing town of Amherst, Massachusetts. I learned more about the life of Emily Dickinson in just half an hour than I had ever known about her. It certainly shows that Dickinson wasn't the lonely recluse that I had always heard her to be. In addition to photographs, there are many facsimile reprints of letters written both by Emily Dickinson and to her. I believe this book will be very helpful to future biographers and historians.

Emily Dickinson is often a religious poet, and more often than many think, an erotic one. She is famous for her mysteries and contradictions and elusiveness. She died and left more than l700 poems, many almost indecipherable, and a number of them "uncertainly finished." Her sister Vinnie wanted the works to see print, but could not persuade her brother Austin's wife Sue to get the job done, so she turned to Austin's mistress, Mabel, who was also married. This is the lovers' story, told through 13 years of self-justifying letters and diary entries. More importantly, it is the story of how Mabel took on the job of copying and editing the poems to please her lover, and perhaps to irritate her enemy, Sue. Emily became famous about five years after she died due to Mabel's efforts. Polly Longsworth did a fine job condensing love letters and diary entries to give us a picture of these tormented souls, whose relationships all ended badly. The actual love letters between Austin and Mabel clearly show that neither had Emily's literary talent, but both had her passion. Where Emily apparently suppressed carnality, her brother and his "other woman" reveled in it. If you are as fascinated by Emily's life as you are by her poetry, this part of the tale, while largely occurring after she died, is essential to know. A very worthwhile addition to the saga of Emily Dickinson.