Unlike many buildings which often have rather tenuous associations with writers, the Emily Dickinson Homestead in Amherst is a place of vital pilgrimage for any Dickinson fan. It was here that the writer spent almost her whole life, existing as a virtual recluse, rarely even emerging from her bedroom.
The bedroom is therefore the most interesting part of the house, and the reverential tour guides who take care of the house save it until last. Here Dickinson rose from her virginal sleigh bed, put on her trademark white dress, and sat by the window composing poetry. She must have been of very petite proportions, as the white dress on view is tiny (a replica of the original, which has been removed because of light damage to the fabric). So are the chair and table at which she sat to write over 1,700 poems and 1,000 letters.
On view also is the basket where she stowed her work, having first handstitched her short, elliptical poems into small packets. She once attempted publication but on receiving a negative critique of her wry, jagged, ever modern and challenging offerings, she decided not to bother the unenlightened world of editors again (less than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime, and not at her own instigation).
There is a portrait of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, to whom Emily sent four poems when she was 31 to see if they "breathed". Although he claimed later to have been astounded by her "new and original poetic genius", he told her at the time that the poems were not strong enough for publication. She replied defiantly: "My BarefootRank is better" and began saving her work in packets of four to six sheets held loosely together by threads.
From her bedroom there is a view of the street, flanked by tall fir trees which muffle the sounds in an already quiet part of a quiet university town. The large garden is also open to visitors where the Dickinson devotee can refer fondly to the frequent garden imagery in her poetry, sure that the birds and butterflies were first spotted here:
A Bird came down the Walk
He did not know I saw
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
The conservatory where Emily kept exotic plants is no longer extant. The Homestead, built around 1813, is a substantial and attractive redbrick house, with large, cool rooms. There are two parlours, a library and a dining-room. It was probably the first brick house in Amherst, built for Dickinson's grandparents. Her grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, a lawyer, was one of the principal founders of Amherst College.
There are portraits of Emily's family members on the walls, including her father, Edward Dickinson and her brother Austin (who lived at The Evergreens, the house next door, with his wife Sue - Emily's best friend - and children). They were a closeknit family and Emily was particularly attached to her father, an outwardly stern but loving patriarch. She was distraught when he died in 1874.
Much has been made of Emily's voluntary seclusion but it seems that she lived a contented, if interior, life. She was disappointed in love twice. She met a charismatic clergyman in Philadelphia who was already married, and although they wrote to each other, it was never an option that they make a life together. In her late forties she established an attachment to an old family friend, Judge Otis Lord, about 20 years her senior. There seems to have been a tender, if not very urgent relationship before Lord's sudden death in 1884.
Emily died in 1886; she is buried locally and visitors can visit her grave, which is not far from the Homestead. She was 55 and suffering from Bright's Disease. She had been living in the house with her sister Lavinia and Maggie Maher, an Irish maid whose family had emigrated from Tipperary during the Famine (Maggie would have performed most of the chores, but Emily baked bread every day). Lavinia, discovering a hoard of some 900 poems after Emily's death, got together with Higginson to arrange publication (he couldn't resist altering some of the language, though thankfully his meddlings have been ironed out since).
Emily had made Maggie promise that she would burn her poems when Emily died, but luckily for posterity, Maggie did not fulfil her promise.
The Emily Dickinson Homestead, 280 Main Street, Amherst, Massachusetts. Open from March to mid-December, hourly tours 1 - 4 pm, Wednesday to Saturday. Only open Wednesdays and Saturdays in March, November and December. Admission $5.