With special attention to Emily Dickinson's growth into a poet, this literary biographical study charts Dickinson's hard-won brilliance as she worked, largely alone, to become the unique American woman writer of the nineteenth century.

List of Illustrations Preface 1. Reaching 1850 2. Dickinson's Search, to Find the Poem of Her Being 3. Losses into Art 4. Dickinson's Expanding Readership 5. Dickinson and War 6. Colonel Higginson as Mentor 7. Life Without Home, For the Last Time 8. Dick ...