Customer Reviews

Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

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I don't doubt that it's possible to enjoy Emily Dickinson's poems in editions like this. But you should be aware that you are not really reading what she wrote. You are reading what earlier editors _wish_ she had written - a sort of 'tidied-up' and regularized version, a badly-tampered-with-text of a genius by those who weren't.

In a way, the situation is a bit like the one that prevails with regard to food. Would you rather eat natural food or genetically modified food? Maybe the modified food doesn't taste any different, but it might be doing harmful things to us that the author of real food never intended. So why take a risk when we can have the real thing ?

There are two major editors who can be relied on for accurate texts of ED's poems. These are Dickinson scholars R. W. Franklin and Thomas H. Johnson. Both produced large Variorum editions for scholars, along with reader's editions of the Complete Poems for the ordinary reader. Details of their respective reader's editions are as follows.

THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON : Reading Edition. Edited by R. W. Franklin. 692 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-67624-6 (hbk.)

THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 784 pp. Boston : Little, Brown, 1960 and Reissued. ISBN: 0316184136 (pbk.)

For those who don't feel up to tackling the Complete Poems, there is Johnson's abridgement of his Reader's edition, an excellent selection of what he feels were her best poems:

FINAL HARVEST : Emily Dickinson's Poems. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 352 pages. New York : Little Brown & Co, 1997. ISBN: 0316184152 (paperbound).

Friends, do yourself a favor and get Johnson's edition. Why accept a watered-down version when you can have the real thing?

Although Emily Dickinson is a marvelous poet, this edition is not a good one to buy. The catalogue claims it is printed from "the earliest, most authorative editions" without noting that the earliest editions were heavily edited, eliminating much of what makes Dickinson unusual and brilliant. For example, another reviewer quotes from poem 258, which should read "There's a certain slant of light, / Winter Afternoons-- / That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes--"; the first editor didn't think many people would know what the word "heft" meant, so he (without Dickinson's posthumous permission) simply replaced it. Get a volume of Dickinson's poems, certainly! But not this one.

I ordered this text directly from the publisher for my students. Never once did the Dover Thrift folks ever mention that this is the "cleaned up" version of the poetry, that Dickinson's own syntax and punctuation had been altered by later editors. Though these edited versions were common years ago, today nobody really reads these versions of the poems except to discuss the stultifying effect that such gender and publication politics had on her work. Please note that there are many wonderful versions of Dickinson's work in print, and that these poems are NOT Dickinson's, not as rich or complex as hers, and NOT even worth a dollar. Find her poems for free online, or go ahead and buy a more worthwhile edition. SKIP THIS ONE.

This little gem is a treasure trove of the best of Emily Dickinson. All of her best known works are found nestled within these pages. President John Adams once gave the advice that you would never be lonely with a poet in your pocket. It is so true. I carry this little book with me everywhere, and find myself inspired by the magic within the pages. The poems have been ordered in a logical way either by theme or topic. It includes "Hope" , "The Chariot", "March" and my favorite, "There's a certain slant of Light on winter afternoons that oppresses like the weight of cathedral tunes..." Buy this book if you wear your heart on your sleeve, your passion on your paper and your soul on your solitude.

emily dickonson....censored. Her poems were not only the words but all those commas and punctuation marks.

This is the perfectly sized volume to tuck into your bag for those random free moments during your day when you'd like to refresh your psyche with a tad of Dickinson. Sure, there are far better complete volumes out there of her work, and I highly recommend them. However, without over-analyzing the issue, I find this book to be a comfort while waiting on line at the bank, in the dentist's office, at the car dealership, etc.

And, despite the fact that it might label me as hopelessly shallow -- the cover is pretty as well.