This work places Emily Dickinson’s poetry in a new setting, examining the many ways in which Dickinson’s literary style was affected by her experiences with tuberculosis and her growing fear of contracting the disease. The author gives an in-depth discussion on 73 of Dickinson’s poems, providing readers with a fresh perspective on issues that have long plagued Dickinson biographers, including her notoriously shut-in lifestyle, her complicated relationship with the tuberculosis-stricken Benjamin Franklin Newton, and the possible real-life inspirations for her “terror since September.”

George Mamunes is a retired teacher of American history. He is a member of the Emily Dickinson International Society and lives in Suffern, New York.

George Mamunes
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 211
Bibliographic Info: appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2008
pISBN: 978-0-7864-3227-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      vii
Introduction      1

1. The Omitted Center      5
2. Dread Disease      22
3. Impenitence      41
4. Ben Newton      56
5. First Love      80
6. Spirit-Bride      100
7. Queen Recluse      110
8. Terror      128
9. Afterlife      148

Appendix A: Novel Excerpts      161
Appendix B: List of Poems      171
Chapter Notes      175
Bibliography      185
Index      193

• “Groundbreaking…well researched and carefully documented, this book is a compelling study of a widespread and dreaded disease that haunted the lives of Dickinson and her contemporaries.”—Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin
• “Opens up for readers a rich lode of information and insight, not only about Dickinson’s health but also about her relationship to other writers and about the role of chronic disease in nineteenth-century American culture.”—Mary Loeffelholz, author of Dickinson and the Boundaries of Feminist Theory and From School to Salon: Reading Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Poetry
• “Mamunes argues convincingly…in a book filled with haunting stories, Mamunes draws evidence from medical records, Amherst archives, popular fiction, and even Benjamin Newton’s probate records to cast fresh perspective on Dickinson’s explosive artistic achievement.”—Jane Donahue Eberwein, author of Dickinson: Strategies of Limitation and editor of An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia