THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON, INCLUDING VARIANT READINGS CRITICALLY COMPARED WITH ALL KNOWN MANUSCRIPTS. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, nd. [A single-volume reprint of the original 1955 3-vol. edition]. ISBN 0-674-67601-7 HBK.

Prior to the appearance of Johnson's great variorum edition of Emily Dickinson in 1955, an edition which was the first to offer readers accurate texts of her complete poems, it was not possible to arrive at a just estimation of her tremendous achievement, an achievement that places her at the forefront of the ranks of the world's greatest poets. Because of the highly idiosyncratic nature of her poems, all earlier editors had felt obliged, to some extent or other, and in order to make them more acceptable to the public, to normalize them by adding titles, smoothing her rhymes, changing words, regularizing punctuation, and relineating them; some editors even went so far as to remove entire stanzas. It becomes a tribute to the power of her poems that, despite this savage treament they somehow survived, and there are many readers, even today, who have grown to love these mutilated versions without ever realizing just how far removed they are from her originals.

Although Johnson himself wasn't entirely free of the slash-and-burn approach to ED's texts - since he apparently felt that readers weren't yet ready for the peculiar lineation that we find in Emily Dickinson's own handwritten versions of the poems - he should nevertheless be credited with having brought the worst of it to an end, and for having given us texts that are closer to the originals than ever before. He is also to be credited with having established an approximate chronological order for the 1775 poems in his edition, and for having provided us with a convenient way of referring to these untitled poems by giving each of them a number, the well-known 'Johnson numbers' which are still standard today. Each numbered poem has been transcribed exactly as it is found in the manuscripts, though with his editorial choice of variant and with lineation normalized. Below each poem comes a list of variants, information about the poem's manuscript source/s, and its publication history. The poems are preceded by 70 pages of Introductory material, which include 20 pages of very interesting photographic facsimiles in illustration of ED's varied writing styles, and the book is rounded out with an Appendix, a Subject Index, and an Index of First Lines.

The present version is an undated reprint, in one volume, of the original 1955 3-volume edition, and is a substantial book of over 1300 pages weighing in at a hefty 4lbs plus. Given the fantastic price of the book, I was amazed to discover that, although bound in full cloth, instead of the pages being sewn in signatures it has been given a glued spine which is nowhere near strong enough to hold the weight of all these pages. Although I'm pretty careful with books, the brand-new copy I examined split at the spine the first time I opened it. Anyone who is interested in the Johnson variorum would be well advised to search for a copy of the much better produced earlier and stitched 3-volume version. Although the present book deserves more than 5 stars for its content, it deserves far less for its poor physical makeup.

As a contribution to scholarship, Johnson's variorum was a magnificent achievement for its time, and helped greatly in establishing Emily Dickinson's reputation. But much has come to light since 1955, and R. W. Franklin's richer 1998 variorum (which unlike the Johnson provides details of the original lineation) may now be said to have superseded it. Details of the Franklin variorum are as follows:

THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON : VARIORUM EDITION. Edited by R. W. Franklin. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-67622X HBK.

This is an excellent book for anyone who LOVES Emily Dickinson. Although it does not contain all the different versions of her poems, it is comprehensively edited to have the version of each known poem that is believed to be Dickinson's most complete and revised. This edition also seem to have the most complete collection of poems--1,789-- compared to the other "complete poems". However, if you are looking for an edition for studious reasons, this edition does have different numbering for the poems than the ones usually used (the editor claims them to be in the most accurate chronological order possible).
The binding of this book is VERY nice and has its own ribbon for marking pages. Definitely a nice book.

THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON : Reading Edition. Edited by R. W. Franklin. 692 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-67624-6 (hbk.)

When it comes to choosing an edition of Emily Dickinson's poems, we need to be very careful. Selections of her poems have appeared in many editions, and the earlier ones - which are still being reprinted - often contain extensively edited and revised versions of her poems which do not give us what she actually wrote.

Her poems are so unusual, in terms of their diction, meters, grammar, and punctuation, that earlier editors felt obliged to replace her characteristic dash with more conventional punctuation, and to regularize and smooth out her texts to make them more acceptable to readers of the time.

In fact, it was only when Thomas H. Johnson's editions appeared that readers were finally given an accurate version of the original texts, with Emily Dickinson's diction and punctuation restored.

Johnson produced two different editions of the poems. The first, a 3-volume Variorum Edition (1955), includes all of her many variants, since Emily Dickinson often added alternate words to her drafts and in many cases seems never to have decided on a final reading. These variants, though extremely interesting to scholars, enthusiasts, and advanced students of ED, are not really necessary in an edition for the general reader.

What the general reader needs is an edition in which the editor, after closely examining the manuscripts and taking into account all relevant factors, gives what he feels is one sensible and acceptable reading, and this is what Johnson gave us in the second edition he prepared, his Reader's edition (details of which appear below).

R. W. Franklin has followed the same procedure as Johnson. In other words, readers can feel confident that in both the present edition and in the Johnson, they have been given (insofar as it's possible to get her idiosyncratic manuscript drafts over into typography) at least one accurate reading of ED's original draft.

Those who would like to look at the variants can always consult Johnson's Variorum (1955), or R. W. Franklin's more recent Variorum (1998). Better still, if they can, they might take a look at R. W. Franklin's sumptuous 2-volume 'The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson' (1981), which gives photographic facsimiles of many of her manuscripts.

Emily Dickinson is a very great poet. Personally I think that in some ways she is the greatest poet of all. In the present edition we have been given accurate texts of 1789 of her poems, arranged so far as was possible in chronological order of composition.

Franklin's is a scholarly edition, based on his Variorum, which should serve the general reader well enough for most ordinary purposes. Besides the poems it also contains a brief Introduction, two Appendices, and an Index of First Lines.

This beautifully produced and superbly printed Franklin (which contains 14 more poems than the earlier Johnson) will give you access to a body of poems that are so far above the ordinary run of poems that we really ought to have another word for them.

Just as a prism breaks up light into a band of colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet - and their infinite gradations, so do Emily Dickinson's poems become, as it were, a prism which captures the white light of reality, a reality which as it flows through the prism of her poem explodes into a multiplicity of meanings.

It is the rich suggestiveness of her poems, a suggestiveness which generates an incredible range of meanings, that prevents us from ever being able to say (to continue the metaphor) that a given poem is 'about red' or 'about blue,' because her poems, as US critic Robert Weisbuch has pointed out, are in fact about _everything_. This is what makes her so unique, and this is why she appeals to every kind of reader (or certainly to open-minded ones) and even to children.

Emily Dickinson's poetry is one of the wonders of the world. Whether you select the Franklin or the Johnson edition, it will become a book that you will cherish, a golden book and endless source of pleasure and inspiration that you will find yourself returning to again and again.

For those who may be interested, details of Johnson's Reader's edition are as follows:

THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 784 pp. Boston : Little, Brown, 1960 and Reissued. ISBN: 0316184136 (pbk.)