Customer Reviews

Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language (Revisiting New England)

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Although Emily Dickinson rarely left her home after about the age of thirty, she lived in a bustling household that included her sister and several household servants, among them Margaret Maher, who worked for the family for decades. Only three incidents out of the many Murray elucidates suffice to show Maggie's importance to Dickinson and to her subsequent readers: Dickinson gave Maggie many of her poems to keep in her trunk, the famous daguerotype has come down to us from Maggie, who presumably had the only copy, and Maggie worked for Mabel Loomis Todd for free as Mabel edited Dickinson's poems. Part of a large Irish family, Maggie herself, independent of the Dickinson family, comes to life in this well researched and vividly written book. It is am important book on Dickinson and on the social history of the time.

Very interesting. Serious reading. Well researched. Not as much about the Irish experience as I expected. Also discusses African American servants.

Murray's generosity of spirit and writing is a must read for anyone interested in the unheard voices of New England during the 19th century. Certainly her research bore information that we can all learn from. She is the type of writer that I want to read more and more of. I excitedly look forward to reading her next book.

It's incredible that our knowledge of Emily Dickinson was so limited before Murray's journey behind the curtains into Emily's rich interaction with her Irish and African American servants--and how that shaped Dickinson's extraordinary use of language. The book offers wonderful insights into Dickinson--and 19th century life in New England. Beyond that, it makes me realize how so much history is written from the perspective of the upper class--and how much has been left out. A real eye opener!

What an amazing book. I think Adrienne Rich said it best in her review:

"From reams of letters, poems, archival records, photographs, maps, newspaper articles, and interviews with descendants of Irish immigrant and African American laborers and servants, Aife Murray resurrects submerged lives and social realities in 19th century New England and beyond. Focusing on the Dickinson household through a new and revelatory lens, she makes a persuasive case that Dickinson's radical poetics were inflected by Irish and African American vernacular speech, even as she rejected standard literary and parlor diction. At center is not only the poet herself but Margaret Maher, alongside whom she worked as mistress and maid through her most productive years, and who actually preserved her poems.

This is a work of re-visionary reading and hands-on research. The daring of Murray's quest and the even-handed generosity of her spirit are matched by the vitality of her own prose."