THE LETTERS OF EMILY DICKINSON Edited by Mrs. Mabel Loomis
Todd
Nearly forty years ago, shortly after the death of Emily Dickinson, a number of her letters were collected and edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of a young astronomer who had come to work in the University et Amherst. Since the first appearance of those letters the legend of this poet-recluse has grown, and several biographies have appeared, all of them concerned with the problem of the frustrated love affair which caused her to retire into her father's hiause and to become so shy of public scrutiny that she could not even address her envelopes when she wrote to friends. She dreaded that strangers should see her handwriting. Those letters became more and more eccentric as their author fed herself with the symbolism evolved out of her own solitude, and the bio- graphical facts which they might have revealed remains hidden. With the aid of new footnotes, pictures, and a second introduction, Mrs. Todd in her new edition of The Letters of Emily Dickinson- (Harpers; I5S.) has thrown some light on that mystery. The lovers of this odd metaphysicalgenius will welcome this book, and will be glad to read it in con- junction with the biographies by Genevieve Taggard and Josephine Pollit, reviewed in our columns two years ago.
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