DICKINSON, Emily (1830-1886). Poems…--Poems Second Series –Poems Third Series. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892, 1891, 1896.

3 works in 3 volumes, 8vo. 3pp. facsimile of “Renunciation” in the Second Series. (Some light creasing and spotting.) All in original green cloth-backed cream cloth gilt, edges gilt (some staining or soiling, some light rubbing or scuffing). Provenance: Nathan Haskell Dole (1852-1935), American editor, translator, author (note by Stephen Weissman, Ximenes Rare Books, indicating the purchase from Dole's library in 1978).

FIRST EDITIONS of the Second and Third Series, eighth edition of the First Series. While Dickinson published 7 poems during her lifetime in magazines, these posthumous volumes comprise the first published collections of her poetry, which were edited by her close friends Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson. Dole published a letter summarizing a paper written by Todd on Dickinson’s life and works, published in Book News in March 1892, noting that Todd was “one of the comparatively few who were admitted to anything like intimacy with the weird recluse of Amherst” (Buckingham, 361). Dole also noted that the Indian pipe decoration on the front covers of the present works was made from the panel given to Dickinson as a gift from Todd (Buckingham, 349). BAL 4655; 4656; and 4661 [Binding 1, with spine imprint of “Roberts Bros.” in unbeveled boards]; Buckingham, Emily Dickinson’s Reception in the 1890s.

Property from a Private Collection, Evanston, IL

DICKINSON, Emily (1830-1886). Poems…--Poems Second Series –Poems Third Series. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892, 1891, 1896.