Spooky TV Shows II: How do you prove if ghosts are real?

Danny Robins: Uncanny (2023-25)

A few years ago I wrote a kind of round-up of supernatural TV shows past and present, with particular emphasis on the epically silly 28 Days Haunted. It seems that time has come round again. To quote from the film of Shirley Jackson's classic Haunting of Hill House:

No one will hear you, no one will come, in the dark, in the night.

Each of the shows I'll be talking about below seems to illustrate a different approach to that age-old conundrum - not so much whether or not ghosts exist, as how best to scare the pants off people by suggesting that they do.

One is British, another American, and the third from Latin America.

James Wan: True Haunting (2025- )

This set of TV shows is a bit different from the last lot, though. Each of them is excellent - in its own, idiosyncratic way. And all of them (even Los Espookys) have interesting points to make about the whole subject of paranormal phenomena.

Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega & Fred Armisen: Los Espookys (2019-22)

At this point, though, I'd better go back to the question in my title: Whether or not you can actually prove the existence of ghosts. If your own answer to that is: You can't - because they don't, then that's the end of the conversation. There's no point in indulging in further debates over the meaning of the word "ghost" - discarnate entities of some sort, or direct proof of life after death? You've made up your mind. You're closed to further discussion.

Danny Glover's show Uncanny - based on his award-winning podcast - gets around this one in a rather ingenious way. He's appointed two teams: "Team Sceptic" - represented by psychologist Dr. Ciarán O'Keeffe; and "Team Believer" - represented by Scottish author and (former) psychology lecturer Evelyn Hollow.

The two are careful not to stray from their preset roles: Ciarán to come up with naturalistic explanations of any odd phenomena; Evelyn to contextualise the events and issues under discussion in the larger field of paranormal lore. And while this certainly makes for interesting, fun TV, it does leave to one side what seems to me the most important conceptual issue raised by such discussions:

• What would constitute evidence of the existence of ghosts - or, for that matter, of life after death?

If Ciaran in "Team Sceptic" is secretly of the opinion that no evidence would ever be enough: that anything can be explained away naturalistically: because it must be - in order to maintain the integrity of the scientific laws of nature, then we have a problem. There's no point in trying to convince him, because he's impervious to any accumulations of data which might eventually constitute proof.

After all, he wouldn't be the first to maintain such certainty:

At the end of the 19th century ... it was generally accepted that all the important laws of physics had been discovered and that, henceforth, research would be concerned with clearing up minor problems and particularly with improvements of method and measurement.

If Ciarán and Evelyn were to have a real debate, though, I think that "Team Sceptic" would have to commit themselves in advance to a statement of what might constitute actual proof in their eyes. That is, admittedly, a huge ask, but it's a necessary one if we're serious about wanting to discuss the question.

"Team Believer" is, of course, in a much safer place conceptually. They can cherrypick evidence and information just as they please. They don't have to believe in the details of any particular case, because their overall openmindedness to the possibility of paranormal phenomena makes any such concessions unimportant. They can be as credulous or as hard-headed as they wish: they're already open to the possibility that the evidence cited could be true.

This is how Samuel Taylor Coleridge summed up the dilemma in an 1818 diary entry, collected in the posthumous Anima Poetae (1895):

If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke — Ay! and what then?

Rodney Ascher, dir.: Room 237 (2012)

A few years ago I wrote a post about the fascinating documentary Room 237, a compendium of all the crazy theories people had come up with to "explain" Stanley Kubrick's movie The Shining (1980).

It wasn't just that I found most of these readings of the film unconvincing, it was more that it seemed to me that their originators had no idea of the actual rules of argument: the nature of the evidence which could be considered admissible in such discussions.

They would say (for instance) that Jack Torrance was using a German brand of typewriter. Therefore, The Shining was a commentary on the Holocaust. Or else they'd notice a poster in one corner of the Overlook Hotel rec room which vaguely resembled (from some angles) a horned bull. Therefore, the film is based on the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Their readings were, to my mind, a series of non sequiturs and conceptual leaps based on insufficient evidence. As I put it in my post, it's not so much whether or not I agreed or disagreed with these theories, it's more a question of the nature of truth. "There is no truth, only points of view," is a much-quoted (and variously attributed) adage which often comes up in such discussions. I remarked in my post:

The way I prefer to approach the word "truth" is by means of a question: Do you recognise the existence of error? In other words, is a misreading a possibility for you? For instance, if you were to read out a passage in a foreign language unknown to you, and then make guesses at the meaning of some of the words, would this be a legitimate "interpretation" of the passage - or simply a manifestation of ignorance?

The question of whether or not you can understand a foreign language is, I think, a good test of one's relation to truth and "alternate facts" (as they're now notoriously known):

There's a gag I read once in a British magazine about literary receptions abroad, the ones where someone comes up to you and says, "Hello, I your translator am!" So, no, I'm unable to concur with the view that all truths are relative, and all interpretations equal.

My French is not particularly grammatical, and I make a lot of mistakes when I speak it, but I can read a book in French and understand virtually all of it. Even a native speaker of a language has occasional headscratching moments when they can't quite follow a statement in their own tongue. But that doesn't alter the fact that my relation to the French language is different from that of someone who's never studied it at all.

Oliver Sachs: Hallucinations (2012)

So how does this relate to the question of the existence of ghosts? Well, of course it depends on a question I've left in the too-hard basket until now: what exactly is a "ghost"? What do you - or I - mean by the word? Almost all psychologists, para or otherwise, would accept that visual, auditory and even tactile hallucinations happen. Oliver Sachs wrote a fascinating book on the subject, which I would strongly recommend to any interested parties.

There's even - some would claim - a phenomenon called a "mass hallucination", which covers those sights, or sounds, or feelings which are shared by more than one person. Ciarán O'Keeffe, in his discussions of particular cases on Uncanny, tends to supplement this particular grab-all, get-out-of-jail-free-card explanation with other old chestnuts such as urban legends, or curious visual and auditory phenomena such as the Brocken spectre or auditory pareidolia, where "the brain tries to find patterns in ambiguous sounds."

When you put them all together, along with the notorious unreliability of witness evidence - which tends, unfortunately, to increase over time, Team Sceptic would seem to have a pretty impregnable position to defend. "You're lying!" - or, more charitably, "You must be mistaken" - covers most other contingencies.

Which is why I think someone who's taken on the responsibility of espousing this view should have to answer whether any evidence - of any type - could ever convince them of the existence of discarnate entities, or ghosts, or spirits of any kind? As I said above, if the answer is a firm no, then the conversation is pointless. They'll always find an alternative, naturalistic explanation for any event, however puzzling, simply because they must: for the sake of their mental health (or, if you prefer, life lie).

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Anima Poetae

In the case of Coleridge's flower, for instance - well, clearly it wasn't the same flower. It couldn't be. Coleridge was a notorious blabbermouth, and he'd probably been going on and on about this recurrent dream he'd been having, and some unscrupulous friend - perhaps that inveterate practical joker Charles Lamb - snuck in while he was asleep and put a flower in his hand. Har-de-ha-ha! Case closed. (That's if it ever happened in the first place. Which it probably didn't ...)

Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega, Fred Armisen et al.: Los Espookys (2019-22)

The absurd conundrums of Los Espookys, where a group of friends whose love of horror movies and spooky shit generally has inspired them to form a business faking ghostly phenomena - monsters and mermaids designed to bring back tourists to a deserted beach resort; a fluffy alien who gets asthma attacks whenever he disobeys the authoritarian teacher of a kindergarten class (thus terrifying the other children into obedience) - might seem a little distant from these more serious lines of inquiry.

That's not entirely true, though. The series of abridged editions of classic texts produced in one episode by the functionally illiterate character Tati are hugely, unexpectedly successful. Before long Don Quixote (the Tati edition) and her versions of many other more-praised-than-read books - One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Old Man and the Sea, Moby-Dick - have begun to take over. We see major publishing houses vying for distribution rights, school-children answering questions about Tati's ending for the Quixote ("Tati saw a butterfly on her nose and put down her pen" - "Correct!"). In other words, anything promulgated with sufficient authority has a good chance of being believed.

It's a small step from "that's ridiculous" to "I'm not sure that's exactly what Cervantes had in mind ..." What better metaphor for the present-day industry of the Afterlife, where flimsy assertions about the nature of "moving on to the light," stone tape theory, or EVP (electronic voice phenomena) have become so familiar through constant repetition that we no longer question whether or not there's any real evidence behind them?

if you're actually interested in proof of the existence of discarnate entities - as I regret to say I still am - none of this "common knowledge" is really of any use. However, the various cases discussed in Uncanny - and rather more dramatically reenacted in True Hauntings - are. Solely, however, because they're also accompanied by research and careful questioning of as many actual witnesses as possible.

Whenever the master of macabre fiction, M. R. James, was asked if he actually believed in ghosts:

I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me.

It's a pretty cautious answer, but I'm afraid that I may have to echo it. I continue to search for satisfactory evidence, but I have to say that Danny Robins' TV show, in particular, is the one of the best sources I've come across for a very long time.

Hasui Kawase: Snow Valley Climbers on Mt. Shirouma (1935)

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Danny Robins: Uncanny (2023-25)

Uncanny
(2 Series: 2023-25)
List of Episodes:

Series 1 (2023):


1. Case 1: Miss Howard

   Danny Robins asks if a young girl in rural Cambridgeshire was visited by the apparition of an Edwardian school teacher? He also examines a Canadian psychological experiment and a time slip in Liverpool.

2. Case 2: The Bearpark Poltergeist

   Danny investigates Ian's claims that his childhood home in County Durham was plagued by poltergeist activity. He investigates the area's mining history, the science of sleep paralysis and even the mechanics of a flushing toilet.

3. Case 3: The Oxford Exorcism

   The first series concludes with Danny looking into the case of a student house believed to be haunted by a malevolent entity. It is one of the most unsettling cases Danny has ever come across. But could it simply be a shared delusion?


Series 2 (2025):


4. Case 1: The Haunting of Hollymount Farm

   The return of the programme in which Danny Robins investigates real-life stories of seemingly paranormal encounters. Tonight, he meets Liam, who spent his youth terrified by a ghostly child on his family's Hollymount Farm.

5. Case 2: The Charity Shop Poltergeist

   Danny Robins meets Sibyl, the manager of a shop where multiple staff have witnessed the terrifying presence of a man who appeared to be watching their every move. Danny researches the building's past and explores Stone Tape Theory.

6. Case 3: Shadow Man

   In this third case, Danny Robins meets Julian and hears of one of the most frightening cases he's ever investigated - a young man tormented by a towering, terrifying shadow figure.

7. Case 4: Emily's Room

   Danny Robins meets a mother and daughter who believe they were haunted by a sinister figure intent on hurting them. But were the events truly supernatural?

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Facebook: True Haunting (October, 2025)

True Haunting
(1 Series: 2025)
List of Episodes:

Case 1:


1. Eerie Hall: Part 1

   Geneseo college 1984. Avid runner Chris Di Cesare is keen to start his freshman year until strange voices and inexplicable feelings of dread set in.

2. Eerie Hall: Part 2

   As Chris becomes increasingly isolated, a friend urges him to try communicating with the entity that haunts him. But his waking nightmares only worsen.

3. Eerie Hall: Part 3

   Rumors fly after a friend's harrowing encounter. After making an ominous discovery while running with his father, Chris decides to face the force alone.


Case 2:


4. This House Murdered Me: Part 1

   Eager to start fresh, a young family moves into a dreamy Victorian-style mansion. But the fixer-upper soon becomes costly and deeply disturbing.

5. This House Murdered Me: Part 2

   From burning sage to hiring paranormal investigators, April and Matt fight for the house. Can they face its horrifying history and win their home back?

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Interview: Julio Torres & Ana Fabrega (2022)

Los Espookys
(2 Series: 2019-22)
List of Episodes:

Series 1 (2019):


1. El exorcismo [The Exorcism]:
   (with Bernardo Velasco & Julio Torres)

   Four friends start a new business based on their shared love of horror.

2. El espanto de la herencia [The Inheritance Scare]:
   (with Ana Fabrega & Julio Torres)

   Los Espookys are tasked with scaring five would-be heirs to a millionaire's fortune.

3. El monstruo marino [The Sea Monster]:
   (with Ana Fabrega)

   Renaldo creates a new tourist attraction for a seaside town. Tico eyes a new partnership for Los Espookys.

4. El espejo maldito [The Cursed Mirror]:
   (with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Bernardo Velasco, & Julio Torres)

   Los Espookys fake an abduction in exchange for work visas. Tico helps co-write a new horror film.

5. El laboratorio alienigena [The Alien Lab]:
   (with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Bernardo Velasco, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)

   Los Espookys help a high-maintenance researcher bring aliens to life; meanwhile, they remain divided on Bianca's screenplay.

6. El sueño falso [The Fake Dream]:
   (with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)

   Andrés and Úrsula are left to plan a fake dream for an insomnia patient.


Series 2 (2022):


7. Los Espiritus en el Cementerio [The Spirits in the Cemetery]:
   (with Cassandra Ciangherotti, Bernardo Velasco, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)

   Los Espookys put their life changes aside to pose as ghosts for an incompetent groundskeeper hoping to get bereaved families off his back.

8. Bibi's:
   (with Bernardo Velasco) Fri, Sep 23, 2022

   Andrés searches for a new place to live as Tati's marriage deteriorates. Meanwhile, Los Espookys create a monster named Bibi's.

9. Las Ruinas [The Ruins]:
   (with Fred Armisen, Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ana Fabrega, & Julio Torres)

   Úrsula assists Mayor Teresa's bid for president, while Los Espookys, joined by Tico, help a professor stage a fake archaeological site.

10. Las Muchas Caras de un Hombre [One Man's Many Faces]:
    (with Yalitza Aparicio)

    As the group's paths diverge, Renaldo decides to investigate the death of slain pageant queen Karina, whose ghost continues to haunt him.

11. El Virus [The Virus]:
    (with Greta Titelman)

    An actor recruits an increasingly tense Los Espookys to cancel her sitcom, while Ambassador Melanie gets devastating news about a dream job.

12. El Eclipse [The Eclipse]:
    (with Carmen Gloria Bresky)

    Los Espookys stage an eclipse during Mayor Teresa's last election speech. Tico helps Andrés. Renaldo seeks closure over Karina's murder.

Cassandra Ciangherotti & Julio Torres in Los Espookys (2020)

Sin City Tow

Sin City Tow (2024)

If you roll the dice and park your car illegally in Sin City, odds are you're going to lose that bet.

That's the motto for the new US Reality TV series Sin City Tow, set in Las Vegas, and starring a variety of tow-truck drivers, gamblers, and other eccentrics of every stripe.

"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas; sometimes that means your car," quips the owner of one of the two competing businesses, Ashley's Towing, at the heart of the story - such as it is.

This is the latest reality show to audition for a place in my affections since the unfortunate demise of Ice Road Truckers (11 series: 2007-17) after the tragic death of series regular Darrell Ward. I followed that one up with the Canadian show Heavy Rescue: 401 (7 series: 2016-23) which plumbed not dissimilar territory: the adventures - and misadventures - of hardworking truckers in North America's frozen wastes.

Heavy Rescue: 401 (2016-23)

Alas, much though I'm enjoying Sin City Tow, I'm not sure that it will ever reach a second series, given the largely negative commentary it's been getting online - mainly from disgruntled car-owners who've had their vehicles towed, I suspect. Still, 85% of viewers are listed as having "enjoyed" it on Google, so there's some hope left.

I guess what I like most about it is what various of the other commentators dislike: the melodramatic heightening of fairly trivial events, and the narrative shaping that all this raw footage has undergone. The drivers themselves are not really a particularly likeable crew, but then, a dose of that good old Repo Man spirit is no doubt a sine qua non in their profession:

Repo Man (1984)

"See, an ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations."

Let's look at a few of those IMDb User Reviews, then:

... With reality TV shows, there is always the question of possible staging. I must say I do not believe Sin City Tow is guilty of this.

The reason being in the considered opinion of a person who has watched many and varied such series (me) is the following. The people in the confrontations are usually blanked out, their faces that is. With staged scenes, the "actors" are in on it, being paid for their performances, ergo no blanking out. So this is why I believe things are on the up and up.

... There is something to give pause. Are the towing companies seizing vehicles for the sake of making a buck rather than keeping parking in Vegas orderly and under control? Sometimes this does seem that this might be the case ...

The contention that the towing companies might simply be out to make a profit rather than nobly crusading to clean up the unruly streets of Las Vegas is a disturbing one. Next they'll be claiming that the casinos don't stay open simply to redistribute wealth to the starving masses, but rather to pile up profits for their corporate owners!

The point about the blanked-out faces is interesting. Given we see so many cameramen hovering around randomly in most of the scenes, I must confess it hadn''t occurred to me that anyone might have gone to the trouble of staging it that way. Hand-held camera blurring and shakiness is one thing, but surely any kind of fakery would come out looking a bit more polished?

The next commentator clearly doesn't agree, though (given the title of their review):

Dime a dozen fake reality TV show.

Have a friend that is a tow operator, so I caught some episodes of this while at their place.

Immediately obvious that this is another one of those "reality" shows which grew in popularity in the early-mid 2000's. And by reality I mean a show in which they stage a bunch of unbelievable scenarios for the tow truck drivers and employees, most of which consist of the drivers and agitators taking turns on upping each other's poor acting skills.

Other than the poor acting, there are also endless laughable confrontations and "Only in Vegas!" moments throughout. How laughable you ask? On their Halloween themed episode a driver stumbles upon an allegedly real Satanic ritual site, with a dead pig strung up and mutilated.

I won't claim there's 0 entertainment to be found in shows like this, but please do yourself a favor and don't recommend them to friends, unless you want them snickering behind your back because you believe that they're real.

That last paragraph sounds like a real cri-de-coeur to me. I fear that this writer has had the experience of recommending such a show to friends, only to hear them chortling behind his back. I feel his pain. I've heard more than a few such snorting noises myself from people who refuse to believe that a self-styled uppity intellectual such as myself could actually be serious about my passion for Ice Road Truckers (and its ilk).

Lisa Kelly (2011)

In fact, when we were playing one of those silly "who-would-you-most-like-to-have-lunch-with" games, it took me quite a while to explain why Ice Road trucker Lisa Kelly would be my ideal choice. There'd be so much to talk about!

Shawn (2024)

Please don't give these scammers any recognition. I can't speak for the practices of all the tow truck companies, but Ashley's Towing, run by Shawn Davis, is wreaking havoc on the local residents of Las Vegas. It might be entertaining when it's a drunk guy on the strip, but when they illegally tow private home owners' and apartment renters' vehicles from right in front of their homes, it's not funny at all. No one calls these in, the tow trucks prowl the subdivisions and complexes at night for easy prey. They then extort these innocent victims for hundreds of dollars to release their vehicles from the private impound lots. After contacting the police and attorneys, it becomes evident that the scam Ashley's Towing is running is minor enough to fly under the radar of both our criminal and civil justice systems. Even though if you add up all the victims and hundreds of dollars, it's grounds for a class action lawsuit.

Before you support this nonsensical show, think about the honest people who rely on their cars either for work or to get to work, walking out their front door to realize their vehicle is gone. Then imagine them realizing they might lose their job if they don't have their vehicle. Or imagine the folks who can't afford to pay the several-hundred-dollar impound fee but need their vehicle to support their family.

I got my car towed once. I had a date in the centre of town with the lady who would eventually become my wife, and I couldn't find a park anywhere. I eventually took a chance on some reserved spaces outside an apartment complex, hoping that I'd get back before the tenants did. Alas, I miscalculated. Much of the rest of the night was spent ringing the police, then a taxi, then paying an exorbitant fee at a tow yard. I gambled and lost, and was appropriately punished.

If you live in an apartment anywhere - not just Las Vegas - and fail to pay the prescribed fee for your parking, or to display the parking permit correctly, you'll probably get towed. It's hard to see this as grounds for a "class action lawsuit", as the commentator above threatens. Good luck with that, is all I can say.

•

     All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts

- Shakespeare, As You Like It, II: vii.

Here are a few of the principal actors in the comedy:

Jeremy

I'd have to concede that there is something a little disconcerting about the glee with which drivers such as Jeremy (above) pounce on their victims. But then, he did spend most of his formative years pouring concrete for a living, so I imagine he feels that this new lifestyle of his is something of a rest cure. He's unabashedly out for the cash.

"Pineapple"

The rather unfortunately nicknamed "Pineapple", from American Samoa, is more of a dispassionate technician. He tows away big rigs which have outstayed their welcome at truck stops, which requires a great deal of skill and expertise. He's not interested in confrontation, but - given he towers above most of the drivers who take him on - he won't back away from it either.

NB: It was he who, in their Halloween themed episode "stumbled upon an allegedly real Satanic ritual site, with a dead pig strung up and mutilated" in the back of a truck, as one of the commentators above mentioned. I'd like to think it was staged by the producers for a gag, but given the things they find in some of the other cars they tow, it's hard to be sure.

Elmer

Elmer, by contrast, is rather more of a tragic figure. Things never quite go his way. He finds a rich crop of cars, and then is forced to abandon them by an order from home base. He's deputed to shepherd through cars at the weekly auction of abandoned vehicles - an unpaid gig - instead of being out on the streets collecting towing fees. The cars he does tow end up getting damaged, or have to be left behind for one reason or another. He attracts bad luck, despite all his desperate efforts to get ahead.

And yes, there's more than a hint of the commedia dell'arte about the exaggerated clashes of temperament and style in these various knights of the road - and when you throw in the excessive and disproportionate rage displayed by some of the punters coming to the yard to pick up their cars, you begin to verge on Jacobean Revenge Tragedy. "You have to get off sometime," as one woman mouths to the receptionist asking to see the ID and registration she's failed to bring with her. "I'll be waiting."

One thing all of them have in common is a terror of the cops. The mere threat of calling the police is enough to make the most belligerent hoodlum back off from threatening the driver who's just impounded their car. I gather that there's a policy in the US that every call-out of this kind must conclude with an arrest - it's just a question of who ends up in handcuffs. And then there's the added fillip of possibly getting shot if you show any signs of reaching for a weapon (or even looking as if that might be on your mind).

Elvis gets towed

The obvious reading of this programme, then, is as a barometer of American life at its most grotesque and self-parodic. And certainly, in times such as these, it's hard to avoid the feeling that things have deteriorated considerably since Hunter S. Thompson made his own journey to the heart of darkness of the American Dream in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972).

Ralph Steadman: Cover of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972)

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid ot the pain of being a man."

- Dr. Johnson

Thompson's existential despair has been replaced by a more banal wasteland of parking lots and cheap housing units: the darkness on the edge of town (in Springsteen's phrase) has been traded in for six-lane highways petering out in arid nowhere. These towies seem, at times, as futile and hapless as Wall-E robots, trying vainly to clean up an endlessly spreading (and self-renewing) stain on the landscape.

Can we - as a species - survive much more of this? I guess that remains to be seen. After all, as Ian Wedde put it in his great ecological anthem "Pathway to the Sea":

... we know, don’t we,
              citizen, that there’s nowhere
                          to defect to, & that
living in the
              universe doesn’t
                          leave you
any place to chuck
              stuff off
                          of. 

•

The owners of the Tow Truck Company preparing a car for auction

•

Aspects of Emily

Hailee Steinfeld as Emily Dickinson
[Alena Smith: Dickinson (2019-21)]

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

- Emily Dickinson: "I'm Nobody! Who are you?"

Who is [Emily]? What is she, / That all our swains commend her?

Recently I was asked to review a new collection by a veteran local poet for Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook. In my piece I made a passing reference to the line:

'Hope' is the thing with feathers

I was a bit surprised to be asked to attribute the quote.

To me it seemed about on a par with being asked to identify the author of "To be or not to be", or "This was their finest hour". These are phrases which have entered the language, and we all know where they come from.

Or do we? Maybe I'm wrong. It's not that I doubt that there are plenty of people out there who haven't heard of Emily Dickinson - but how many of them read reviews in poetry journals? It would be a bit like postulating a physics student who'd never heard of Einstein.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

The image above is the only authenticated photograph of the poet, taken when she'd just turned 16. Versions of it have been colourised, redrawn, artificially aged, and generally monkeyed around with over the past century or so since the posthumous discovery of her work in 1890.

The first selection from the almost 1800 poems she left behind in manuscript, edited by the Dickinsons' neighbour Mabel Loomis Todd and well-known man of letters Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was such a success that it was quickly followed by two sequels, published in 1891 and 1896, together with a 2-volume collection of the poet's letters (1894).

Emily Dickinson: Poems (1890)

After the death of her brother Austin Dickinson (1829-1895), however, the smouldering feud between his wife Susan (1830-1913), and his lover Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) came to a head. The family took back the manuscripts Emily's sister Lavinia had loaned to Todd, and no more new work appeared for another twenty years.

Far from subsiding, the feud reached new levels of intensity after 1914, via a series of competing editions of poems and letters issued by Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Austin and Susan's daughter (and thus Emily's niece), and Millicent Todd Bingham, Mabel Loomis Todd's daughter, which appeared piecemeal over the next thirty years.

Millicent Todd Bingham: Ancestor’s Brocades (1945)

A vivid - if somewhat one-sided - account of all this palaver is given in Bingham's book Ancestor’s Brocades: The Literary Début of Emily Dickinson (1945). A more honest and accurate version is included in Lyndall Gordon's recent biography Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds (2010).

Lyndall Gordon: Lives Like Loaded Guns (2010)

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But that's not really what interests me here. I'm less keen to talk about Dickinson herself than about "Dickinson", the 30-part TV sitcom /dramedy Bronwyn and I have just been watching on Apple TV.

I was a bit doubtful about the concept at first, but the show's weird mixture of contemporary language and attitudes with "period" clothes and mores does seem to work somehow. And one has to admit that there's a certain brutal accuracy to their skewering of such luminaries as Louisa May Alcott, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman, et al.

Also, the fact that the show strays further and further into the most abject melodrama the longer it goes on provides a perfect disguise for the fact that most of it is true. It's hard to exaggerate just how weird the Dickinsons' lifestyle really was (by all accounts, at any rate): the two separate-but-conjoined houses, the long periods when none of them were speaking to each other, the drunkenness and adultery.

Alena Smith: Dickinson (2019-21)

Nor, it appears, was Emily herself, the Belle of Amherst, quite the shrinking violet of legend. In her 2010 Guardian article "A Bomb in Her Bosom", her biographer Lyndall Gordon calls her "a woman who was fun: a lover who joked; a mystic who mocked heaven."

In Gordon's case, though, she has a ready-made villain to hand for all these misunderstandings: Dickinson's previous "definitive" biographer Richard B. Sewall, who was so much under the thumb of Mabel Loomis Todd that he:

passed on the trove of Todd untruths: that Emily Dickinson had favoured Mabel; that the poet's withdrawal into seclusion had been the result of a family split preceding Mabel's appearance ... The biographer even outdoes the Todds when he suggests that Dickinson's "failure" to publish was a result of a family quarrel.

While one should certainly take any biographer's account of the deficiencies of their predecessors with a grain of salt, there may be something to Gordon's contention that Emily and her family were far more dysfunctional than popular legend would allow:

Helpful Mr Higginson, a supporter of women, who thought he was corresponding with an apologetic, self-effacing spinster, was puzzled to find himself "drained" of "nerve-power" after his first visit to [Emily] in 1870. He was unable to describe the creature he found beyond a few surface facts: she had smooth bands of red hair and no good features; she had been deferential and exquisitely clean in her white piqué dress and blue crocheted shawl; and after an initial hesitation, she had proved surprisingly articulate. She had said a lot of strange things, from which Higginson deduced an "abnormal" life.

But was she a lesbian? Dickinson's Dickinson certainly is, and the object of her affections is, unequivocally, her brother's wife Sue.

That's not the universal verdict, though:

In a novel of 2006 a spiteful Sue ends up "hating" Emily. In a novel of 2007 Sue becomes a death-dealing Lucrezia Borgia. She awaits her victims in the hall of her house, a vamp in décolleté black velvet waving her fan. Can evil go further? It can. Sue "could make mincemeat pie of the Dickinson sisters and eat it for Christmas dinner".

I wish that Lyndall Gordon had thought to supply us with the titles of these two novels. My own quest has (so far) turned up only the following fictional outings:

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Jerome Charyn: The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson (2010)

What if the old maid of Amherst wasn’t an old maid at all? Her older brother, Austin, spoke of Emily as his “wild sister.” ... The poet dons a hundred veils, alternately playing wounded lover, penitent, and female devil. We meet the significant characters of her life, including her tempestuous sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert; her brooding father, Edward; and the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who may have inspired some of her greatest letters and poems.

That somewhat risqué cover illustration seems particularly appropriate for this "astonishing novel that removes Emily Dickinson’s own mysterious mask and reveals the passions and heartbreak of America’s greatest poet."

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John J. Healey: Emily & Herman: A Literary Romance (2013)

On a whim the two distinguished authors [Hawthorne and Melville] invite the Dickinson siblings to accompany them on a trip to Boston and New York. In Manhattan they meet journalist Walt Whitman and William Johnson, a runaway slave, and it is there, despite their efforts to control it, that Emily and Herman fall in love.

Herman Melville seems to be just about the only distinguished mid-century American writer not included in Dickinson, so it's nice that Healey had already supplied the omission.

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Nuala O'Connor: Miss Emily (2015)

The Dickinson household is saved from domestic chaos with the arrival of Ada Concannon, a ‘neat little Irish person, fresh off the boat’. In Amherst in the 1800’s the homesick young maid finds in the gifted middle child, Emily, a fellow feeling. Born on the same day they share a sense of mischief and a love of baking, but Emily’s passion for words is her true vocation. When Ada’s reputation is violated Emily finds herself defending her maid against her own family and those she loves.

The Emily in Dickinson seems a bit baking-challenged, so it's nice to know that this one has at least a few domestic talents. Nuala O'Connor is a skilful and inspiring writer whom Bronwyn and I met at a short story conference in Shanghai, so I won't be saying anything critical of this particular addition to the canon of Emily-Dickinson-fiction (or EDF for short).

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You do begin to wonder at this stage, though, just what aspects of the famed recluse remain to be exploited. I mean, what's next, Emily Dickinson, super-sleuth?

Since you mention it:

Amanda Flower: The Emily Dickinson Mystery Series (2022-25)

A new historical series starring Willa Noble, maid to iconic American poet Emily Dickinson, who solves mysteries with her new employer.

In her online interview with Amanda Flower, the author of the 'Emily Dickinson Mystery Series,' Elise Cooper jumps straight in with the question on everyone's lips:

How did you get the idea to use Emily Dickinson?

Amanda Flower: Each book’s title will be the first line from one of her famous poems ... I pay tribute to the poems, but do not follow it verbatim [sic.] Her poems are imagery and vague with multiple meanings. She never wrote clearly.

No, she never did. And her poems are indeed "imagery and vague with multiple meanings."

Flower goes on to explain that Emily makes the perfect candidate for a detective because "Her poems are mysterious."

The real characters beside Emily were the maid Margaret O’ Brian. I added a maid assistant, Willa, to tell the story in the same manner that Sherlock Holmes had Watson. I also chose that period of her life, in 1855, where Emily and her sister came to Washington because her father was a member of the House of Representatives. This time was about six years before she went into hiding for the rest of her life as a recluse ...

And Emily herself?

She likes to investigate, a good judge of character, ignores societal class, and is loyal. She is also bold, caring, curious, confident, and blunt. She was probably her father’s favorite because he gave her special treatment. She enjoyed wandering around and instead of ... telling her to stop [he] bought her a dog for protection. The dog is real and so his name Carlo, a character in Jane Eyre. He lived for seventeen years, which is unusual for a pure bred Newfoundland. One of the theories is that Emily became a recluse after he passed away.

Joking apart, Flowers' series does sound like a lot of fun. And there's something rather pleasing in her conclusion that "The family gave her room to be different, a genius aspect."

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Simon Worrall: The Poet and the Murderer (2003)

When the author sets out on the trail of a forged Emily Dickinson poem that has mysteriously turned up for sale at Sotheby’s in New York, he finds himself drawn into a world of deception and murder. The trail eventually leads, via the casinos of Las Vegas, to Utah and the darkly compelling world of Mark Hofmann, ex-Mormon and one of the most daring literary forgers and remorseless murderers of all time. As the author uncovers Hofmann’s brilliant, and disturbing, career, he takes the reader into the secret world of the Mormon Church and its controversial founder, Joseph Smith.
Deeply researched but with the narrative pace of a novel, Worrall’s investigation into the life and crimes of this charismatic genius is a real-life detective story you simply won’t be able to put down. On the way, you will meet an eclectic cast of characters: undercover detectives and rare book dealers, Dickinson scholars, forensic document experts, hypnotists, gun-dealers and Mormons ...

At times one does feel just the slightest tendency towards exploitation in certain authors' attempts to shoehorn Emily Dickinson into their books willy-nilly. Mark Hofmann's decision to forge an Emily Dickinson poem doesn't, in itself, sound like the most significant aspect of the true crime mystery described above.

Still, each to their own. It certainly confirms the poet's ability to rouse strong passions: then and now.

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William Luce: The Belle of Amherst (1976)

Perhaps Emily's strongest mark to date, however, has been on the world of film and theatre. Julie Harris's award-winning performance in the long-running play "The Belle of Amherst" (broadcast live on TV in 1976 as a one-woman show), has been criticised by Lyndall Gordon for "perpetuating Mabel Loomis Todd's chaste, hermit-like image of Dickinson, as opposed to the lively, witty, provocative, and sometimes erotic Dickinson present in her work and known to those who knew her more personally."

At the time, though, at least one reviewer praised it as follows:

With her technical ability and her emotional range, Miss Harris can convey profound inner turmoil at the same time that she displays irrepressible gaiety of spirit.

Julie Harris as Emily Dickinson (1976)

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Terence Davies, dir.: A Quiet Passion (2016)

Diagnosed with “Bright’s Disease”, a kidney ailment, [Emily's] health deteriorates with back pain and grand mal seizures. Mother, long suffering from melancholy, has a stroke and passes. Subsequently, Emily discovers that Austin is having an affair with a singer (Mrs Todd). Emily, with sympathy for Susan, confronts her brother’s hypocrisy. With the strains growing, Vinnie points out to Emily her own intolerance of the failings of others.
Emily’s condition deteriorates. She dies with Austin and Vinnie visibly distraught by her side.

- Wikipedia: A Quiet Passion

And so it goes, I guess: Life's a bitch and then you die.

Students of Terence Davies' work have been conditioned to respond favourably to his subtle, understated style. On the other hand, it can be criticised - especially latterly, in this and his follow-up film Benediction, about war poet Siegfried Sassoon - for, at times, taking understatement to the point of indirection.

Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson (2016)

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Madeleine Olnek, dir.: Wild Nights with Emily (2018)

The same could not be said of Madeleine Olnek's Wild Nights with Emily. As its star, Molly Shannon, explained to Entertainment Weekly:

"She’s perceived as a spinster recluse who wanted her poems burned upon death ... That story was fabricated ... She was a lively woman who 100 percent wanted to be published and went up against big men at the head of literary journals, [while] she had a love life — with her brother’s wife ..."
Shannon referenced a 1998 New York Times article, which thanks to infrared light technology, was able to report that Susan's name had been erased from over 10 of Dickinson's writings. The actress seems overjoyed that this new movie will show Dickinson's love for Susan, as well as what Shannon believes was the poet's real personality: that of a woman "full of lust and passion."
"I don’t want to say she was 'dirty,' but she was a very passionate, hungry, deep, insightful, tuned in, expressive lover!"

Dirty - quiet - cheerful ... "Nature abhors a vaccuum" is a saying as old as the hills. Any attempts that Emily Dickinson may (or may not) have made to erase herself during her lifetime appear to have backfired with a vengeance.

Right now she seems to be pretty much "any type of dancer they wanted her to be," to quote (yet again) from my all-time favourite movie about the writing trade, Wonder Boys.

Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson (2018)

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Gage Skidmore: Hailee Steinfeld (2018)

For myself, I find it a bit difficult to get past Hailee Steinfeld's star turn as Emily. Talk about mercurial moods and passions! This Emily gets to do - and say - it all. She's about as shy and retiring as Lady Gaga. And yet her melancholic turns make perfect dramatic sense as well.

For anyone who thought that her bravura performance in True Grit marked the apogee of her talent: think again. If the real Emily wasn't like this, she definitely should have been.

Darren Star: Emily in Paris (2020- )

Emily in Paris, eat your heart out! Steinfeld's Emily in Amherst is not only a better writer than Lily Collins' fish-out-of-water in la ville lumière, she's also a snappier dresser. Who else could rock those mid-nineteenth-century frocks like she does? Even Death agrees, and he's a pretty stern critic ...

Dickinson: Hailee Steinfeld & Wiz Khalifa as 'Death'

True, there may be a certain disconnect with the "creature" encountered by Thomas Higginson on his 1870 visit: the one with "smooth bands of red hair and no good features", but Hailee Steinfeld does her level best to dress down at least some of the time.

What matters is that this Emily is splendidly alive - and sassy. "She had said a lot of strange things, from which Higginson deduced an 'abnormal' life". But what he saw as abnormal we might feel inclined to see as living her best life.

Amherst College: Emily Dickinson & Kate Scott Turner (c.1859)
[unauthenticated]

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Emily Dickinson Commemorative Stamp (1971)

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
(1830-1886)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Thomas H. Johnson, ed.: The Poems of Emily Dickinson (3 vols, 1955)


Poetry:


1. A Valentine [“‘Sic transit gloria mundi,’”]. Springfield Daily Republican (February 20, 1852)
2. To Mrs -, with a Rose ["Nobody knows this little rose -”]. Springfield Daily Republican (August 2, 1858)
3. The May-Wine [“I taste a liquor never brewed - ”]. Springfield Daily Republican (May 4, 1861)
4. The Sleeping [“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers – ”]. Springfield Daily Republican (March 1, 1862)
5. Sunset [“Blazing in Gold, and quenching in Purple” ]. Drum Beat (February 29, 1864)
6. Flowers [“Flowers - Well - if anybody”]. Drum Beat (March 2, 1864)
7. October [“These are the days when Birds come back -”]. Drum Beat (March 11, 1864)
8. My Sabbath [“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church - ”]. Round Table (March 12, 1864)
9. Success is counted sweetest. Brooklyn Daily Union (April 27, 1864)
10. The Snake ["A narrow Fellow in the Grass”]. Springfield Daily Republican (February 14, 1866)
11. Success is counted sweetest. A Masque of Poets (1878)
12. Poems by Emily Dickinson. Edited by Two of Her Friends, Mabel Loomis Todd & T. W. Higginson (1890)
13. Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series. Edited by Two of Her Friends, T. W. Higginson & Mabel Loomis Todd (1891)
14. Poems by Emily Dickinson: Third Series. Edited by Two of Her Friends, T. W. Higginson & Mabel Loomis Todd (1896)
15. The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime. Ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1914)
16. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, with an Introduction by Her Niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1924)
17. Further Poems of Emily Dickinson. Withheld from Publication by Her Sister Lavinia. Ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi & Alfred Leete Hampson (1929)
18. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi & Alfred Leete Hampson (1930)
19. Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi & Alfred Leete Hampson (1935)
20. Bolts of Melody: New Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Mabel Loomis Todd & Millicent Todd Bingham (1945)
21. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Including Variant Readings Critically Compared with All Known Manuscripts. 3 vols. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson (1955)
    • The Complete Poems. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. 1955. London: Faber, 1975.
22. Emily Dickinson: Selected Poems & Letters. Ed. Robert N. Linscott (1959)
    • Selected Poems & Letters. Together with Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Account of His Correspondence with the Poet and His Visit to Her in Amherst. Ed. Robert N. Linscott. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959.
23. A Choice of Emily Dickinson's Verse. Ed. Ted Hughes (1968)
    • A Choice of Emily Dickinson's Verse. Ed. Ted Hughes. 1968. London: Faber, 1970.
24. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Edition. 2 vols. Ed. R. W. Franklin (1981)
25. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition. 3 vols. Ed. R. W. Franklin (1998)
    • The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition. 3 vols. Ed. R. W. Franklin. Cambridge, Mass & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998.
26. Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings. Ed. Jen Bervin & Marta Werner (2013)
    • The Gorgeous Nothings. Ed. Jen Bervin & Marta Werner. Preface by Susan Howe. New York: New Directions / Christine Burgin, in association with Granary Books, 2013.
27. Envelope Poems. Ed. Jen Bervin & Marta Werner (2016)
    • Envelope Poems. Ed. Jen Bervin & Marta Werner. New York: New Directions / Christine Burgin, 2016.
28. Emily Dickinson's Poems: As She Preserved Them. Ed. Cristanne Miller (2016)
    • Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them. Ed. Cristanne Miller. Belknap Press. Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, 2016.



Thomas H. Johnson & Theodora Ward, ed.: The Letters of Emily Dickinson (3 vols, 1958)


Letters:


29. A Valentine ["Magnum bonum, harem scarum”]. Amherst College Indicator (February, 1850)
30. Letters of Emily Dickinson. 2 vols. Ed. Mabel Loomis Todd (1894)
31. The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1924)
32. Letters of Emily Dickinson: New and Enlarged Edition. Ed. Mabel Loomis Todd (1931)
33. Emily Dickinson: Face to Face. Unpublished Letters with Notes and Reminiscence. Ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1932)
34. Emily Dickinson's Letters to Dr. and Mrs. Josiah Gilbert Holland. Ed. Theodora Van Wagenen Ward (1951)
35. Emily Dickinson: A Revelation. Ed. Millicent Todd Bingham (1954)
36. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. 3 vols. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson & Theodora Ward (1958)
    • Johnson, Thomas H., ed. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Associate Editor, Theodora Ward. 3 vols. 1958. Cambridge, Mass & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979.
37. The Lyman Letters: New Light on Emily Dickinson and Her Family. Ed. Richard B. Sewall (1965)
38. Open me carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson. Ed. Ellen Louise Hart & Martha Nell Smith (1998)
39. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Cristanne Miller & Domhnall Mitchell (2024)
    • The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Cristanne Miller & Domhnall Mitchell. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2024.



Jay Leyda, ed.: The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson (2 vols, 1960)


Secondary:


40. Bingham, Millicent Todd. Ancestor’s Brocades. The Literary Début of Emily Dickinson (1945)
    • Ancestor’s Brocades. The Literary Discovery of Emily Dickinson: The Editing and Publication of Her Letters and Poems. 1945. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
41. Whicher, George. This Was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson (1952)
42. Bingham, Millicent Todd. Emily Dickinson’s Home: Letters of Edward Dickinson and His Family. (1955)
    • Emily Dickinson’s Home: The Early Years, as Revealed in Family Correspondence and Reminiscences. With Documentation and Comment. 1955. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
43. Johnson, Thomas H. Emily Dickinson: An Interpretative Biography (1955)
    • Emily Dickinson: An Interpretative Biography. 1955. New York: Atheneum, 1980.
44. Leyda, Jay. The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson. 2 vols (1960)
45. Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. 2 vols (1974)
46. Habegger, Alfred. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (2001)
47. Gordon, Lyndall. Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds (2010)
    • Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds. 2010. Virago Press. London: Little, Brown Book Group, 2010.

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Susan Howe: My Emily Dickinson (1985)

There are, of course, many other sub-branches of Dickinsoniana: poetry selections (illustrated and unillustrated), facsimile editions, critical interpretations by the yard. One rather interesting aspect of this is her tendency to inspire children's picture books.

Here are a few examples:

Michael Bedard: Emily. Illustrated by Barbara Cooney (1992)

"What if your neighbor were the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson? And what if one day she sent a letter inviting your mother to pay her a visit? A little girl who lives across the street from the mysterious Emily gets a chance to meet the poet when her mother goes to play the piano for her. There, the girl sneaks a gift up to Emily, who listens from the landing, and in return, Emily gives the girl a precious gift of her own — the gift of poetry."

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Eileen Spinelli: Another Day as Emily. Illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff (2015)

"Eleven-year-old Suzy just can't win. Her brother is a local hero for calling 911 after seeing their elderly neighbor collapse, and only her best friend was able to win a role in the play they both auditioned for. Feeling cast aside from all angles, Suzy sees a kindred spirit in Emily Dickinson, the subject of her summer project. Suzy decides to escape from her disappointments by emulating the poet's life of solitude: no visitors or phone calls (only letters delivered through her window), no friends (except her goldfish, Ottilie), and no outings (except church, but only if she can wear her long white Emily dress)."

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Kate Coombs: In Emily's Garden. Illustrated by Carme Lemniscates (2019)

"Avid gardener and poet Emily Dickinson collected 424 pressed flower specimens and wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with nature and plants inspiring many of her beloved works. Lines and couplets from Dickinson’s poems paired with Carme Lemniscates’ gorgeous illustrations bring In Emily’s Garden to life, letting toddlers take a stroll in Emily’s garden of verses. See the flowers, birds, butterflies, and bees through Emily’s eyes, and foster a love of gardens and poems alike."

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Jane Yolen: Emily Writes. Illustrated by Christine Davenier (2020)

"As a young girl, Emily Dickinson loved to scribble curlicues and circles, imagine new rhymes, and connect with the natural world around her. The sounds, sights, and smells of home swirled through her mind, and Emily began to explore writing and rhyming her thoughts and impressions. She thinks about the real and the unreal. Perhaps poems are the in-between."

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Jennifer Berne: On Wings of Words. Illustrated by Becca Stadtlander (2020)

"In a small New England town lives Emily Dickinson, a girl in love with small things — a flower petal, a bird, a ray of light, a word. In those small things, her brilliant imagination can see the wide world — and in her words, she takes wing. From celebrated children's author Jennifer Berne comes a lyrical and lovely account of the life of Emily Dickinson: her courage, her faith, and her gift to the world. With Dickinson's own inimitable poetry woven throughout, this lyrical biography is not just a tale of prodigious talent, but also of the power we have to transform ourselves and to reach one another when we speak from the soul."

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Krystyna Poray Goddu: Becoming Emily (2022)

"In Becoming Emily, young readers will learn how as a child, adolescent, and well into adulthood, Dickinson was a lively social being with a warm family life. Highly educated for a girl of her era, she was fully engaged in both the academic and social aspects of the schools she attended until she was nearly 18. Her family and friends were of the utmost importance to her, and she was a prolific, thoughtful, and witty correspondent who shared many poems with those closest to her. Including plentiful photos, full-length poems, letter excerpts, a time line, source notes, and a bibliography, this indispensable resource offers a full portrait of this singular American poet."

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Lydia Corry: Wildflower Emily (2024)

"Follow along as we delve into Emily Dickinson’s childhood, revealing a young girl desperate to go out exploring―to meet the flowers in their own homes. Wade through tall grasses to gather butterfly weed and goldenrod, the air alive with the 'buccaneers of buzz.' And, don’t forget to keep a hot potato in your pocket to keep your fingers warm.
This is Emily Dickinson as you’ve never seen her before, embarking on an unforgettable journey in her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts, with her trusty four-legged companion, Carlo."

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