Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

I have a confession, though I am embarrassed to make it: I did not realize these poems are wrong.

I have been reading this all month, 10-15 pages at a time, building my own little index of favorite poems, and thinking many thoughts about Emily, and how few poems she published in her life, and what she would think of us continuing to read her 150 year later, and how she would have presented these poems had she chosen to...

When finally, about 2/3 of the way through, I looked up her Wikipedia page for just some basic biographical information and learned that THIS EDITION PRE-DATES THE RESTORATION OF HER POEMS TO THEIR ORIGINAL FORMS — EM-DASHES AND CAPITALIZATIONS AND ALL.

Now, being a girl of em-dashes and non-standard capitalizations myself, YOU THINK I WOULD HAVE NOTICED that these poems had been "cleaned up," leaving vanishingly few of either. Have I not read poems by Dickinson before? Am I not at least pop-culture familiar with her whole thing? I guess I was just thinking of other things — of her use of meter, of how many more nature poems were here than I expected. Of why she didn't publish more in her life. And I was distracted?

Listen, you don't need me to tell you about Dickinson, because clearly, I don't know enough. Now I am just left with mixed feelings about this volume, and whether I want to keep it for "historical" value and its beautiful little Modern Library edition, or if I should sell or donate this and find a restored version for my shelves.… (mere)