Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10， 1830 – May 15， 1886) was an American Dickinson was a prolific private poet， though fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines， typically lack titles， and often utilize slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality， two subjects which infused her letters to Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing， it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia， Emily's younger sister， discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd， both of whom heavily edited the A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H J Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century， critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American
