Collected Poetry
The three-volume Variorum Edition of The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1998), is the most reliable edition of Dickinson’s collected poems. The paperback “Reading Edition” of this collection is suggested for readers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
Selected Poetry
Recommended editions include Final Harvest, edited by Thomas H. Johnson (New York: Back Bay Books, 1964); The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson (New York: Modern Library, 2004), which includes an introduction by Billy Collins; and Essential Dickinson (New York: Ecco, 1996), which includes an introduction by Joyce Carol Oates.
Emily Dickinson’s Letters
Emily Dickinson: Selected Letters, edited by Thomas H. Johnson. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958.
Biographies and Literary Criticism
Farr, Judith, with Louise Carter. The Gardens of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Habegger, Alfred. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Modern Library, 2001.
Longsworth, Polly. The World of Emily Dickinson: A Visual Biography. New York: Norton, 1990.
Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998 (Originally published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1974).
Most of the poems used in this Reader’s Guide are on the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Tool: www.poetryfoundation.org. A biography and bibliography are also available there.
