Letter to the Light: Discoveries in Dickinson's Correspondence

Abstract

Sometime around 1900 Elizabeth Gilman made a copy of a letter Emily Dickinson wrote to her Norcross cousins in 1882. A study of this copy not only brings to light new Dickinson text and, with it, new information about her biography, but, perhaps just as importantly, offers a chance to examine how her texts circulated semi-privately in manuscript just as they were coming in to print. This examination also leads to a reconsideration of Dickinson editing, both past and present.