National Post (National Edition)
Slanted history
The soap opera in publishing Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson famously wrote “tell all the truth but tell it slant.” A characteristically enigmatic phrase, it’s both striking and open to multiple interpretations. Still, it might suggest that biographies and works of scholarship should approach their subjects from unexpected angles.
Did Julie Dobrow, then, deliberately or unconsciously compose her mesmerizing account of the discovery, publication and afterlife of Emily Dickinson’s poetry so that it comes across as a multi-generational soap opera? Just giving a précis of her book After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet will show what I mean:
In late 1870s Washington, the flirtatious, self-centred Mabel Loomis was courted by David Todd, a young astronomer at the Naval Observatory. The 20-year-old beauty married him, despite his confession of past sexual “indiscretions.” An ardent diarykeeper, Mabel was soon using special symbols to mark their sexual activity, and in 1880, she gave birth to a little girl, Millicent, who was almost immediately foisted on her mother’s parents. When David accepted a teaching position at Amherst College, the young couple moved to Massachusetts — initially without the baby — and soon became friendly with the town’s leading family: lawyer Austin Dickinson, his wife, Susan, and their three children, including a shy and epileptic 20-year-old son called Ned. Before long, Ned fell in love with now 25-year-old Mabel, who did little to discourage his attentions.
At this time, the Todds also came to know Austin’s two younger sisters, Emily and Lavinia. When Mabel visited their home to play the piano, she occasionally glimpsed a flitting swirl of white in the next room, sometimes even received a note of thanks for calling, but she never actually spoke with the reclusive, almost spectral Emily.
Meanwhile, David regularly succumbed to further “indiscretions.” For her part, Mabel felt more and more drawn to Austin Dickinson, 27 years her senior. They took carriage rides together, Ned grew jealous of his father, Susan became suspicious, the town began to whisper. After Austin and Mabel surrendered to something bigger than both of them, the couple sometimes met secretly at the home of Emily and Lavinia. Still, they denied theirs was a run-of-the-mill adultery — each believed such a soul-stirring love must be heaven-ordained. David even condoned the affair. However, the sternlooking patriarch never left his wife and family.
Then, in 1886, at age 55, Emily died.
Sometime after the funeral, Lavinia unlocked a drawer brimming with scribbledon paper scraps, many sewn together in little packets. Over the years Emily had frequently shared poems — at least 250 of them — with Susan, who had been her close, perhaps more than close, friend before marrying Austin. But here were hundreds and hundreds more. Lavinia then asked her sister-in-law to oversee the publication of this treasure trove, but Susan demurred. So did critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson, with whom Emily had corresponded: Despite many arresting phrases, he pointed out, nothing scanned or rhymed properly. Finally, Lavinia turned to Austin’s artistic and literary “friend.”
For the next two years, Mabel carefully transcribed Emily’s originals, making no changes to them. But when she and Higginson, persuaded to join the project, assembled a selection of poems, they added titles and changed the occasional word to render the work more conventional. Published in 1890, Poems by Emily Dickinson proved a surprise success and ran through multiple printings. A second, then a third selection was brought out.
Though doing none of the work, Lavinia started to feel wrongly overshadowed by Mabel. There were squabbles about royalties and other matters. When Austin died in 1895, leaving his lover shattered and unprotected, the Dickinson clan attacked her. Heartbroken, Mabel managed to keep her priceless Dickinson material locked away in a camphor wood box for nearly three decades.
With the death of Mabel in 1932, Millicent bowed to her destiny, producing a further edition of Emily’s poems (Bolts of Melody in 1945).
Such is a bare-bones outline of After Emily, albeit one that conveys nothing of the viciousness and passion in this decades-long fight between two camps, both zealously committed to Emily Dickinson’s legacy. If you’re interested in “America’s greatest poet,” intellectual property issues or juicy behind-the-scenes literary history, After Emily is your book.