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| Detail from currently the only authenticated photograph of Emily Dickinson in existence, taken by William C. North ca. 1847 when Dickinson was 17 years old |
The Manuscripts of Emily Dickinson
Emily
Dickinson had a very creative relationship with paper.
She often jotted down single lines and raw snatches of poetry on whatever
materials were close at hand. Her writing materials range from slit open
envelopes, such as "The way hope builds his house" (AC 450) shown
here, to scraps of wallpaper and a chocolate wrapper. It is impossible for any
transcription of these fragments to capture the important details of how
Dickinson originally laid out her poetry on the page.
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| “The way hope builds his house”, Amherst Manuscript # 450 |
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| “Necessitates celerity”, Amherst Manuscript # 540 |
