Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems

Fascinating, reclusive, dressed in white and conducting conversations from behind half-open doors, Emily Dickinson was unpublished during her lifetime. Yet this shy poet left a huge body of work in manuscript form, which has never been out of print since parts were first published in 1890, four years after her death.

Her poetry is direct and apparently simple, but bears re-reading many times as it reveals layers of meaning suggested through paradox and articulated by her sometimes unusual syntax. Her popularity lies in the great accessibility of her style, which reveals profound themes of life, destiny and mortality. So far almost 2,000 of her poems have been discovered: this is a representative collection and includes many of her best loved ones.