Lavinia Norcross Dickinson

Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
The Dickinson children (Lavinia on the right), c. 1840
BornFebruary 28, 1833
Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedAugust 31, 1899(1899-08-31) (aged 66)
Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.
Parent(s)Edward Dickinson
Emily Norcross Dickinson
RelativesWilliam Austin Dickinson (brother)
Emily Dickinson (sister)

Lavinia "Vinnie" Norcross Dickinson (February 28, 1833 – August 31, 1899) was the younger sister of American poet Emily Dickinson.[1]

Vinnie was the youngest of the Dickinson siblings born to Edward Dickinson and his wife Emily Norcross in Amherst, Massachusetts.[2] She shared a name with her Aunt Lavinia.[3] On September 7, 1840, Vinnie and her sister Emily started attending school at Amherst Academy, a former boys' school that had opened to female students just two years earlier.[4]

Vinnie was instrumental in achieving the posthumous publication of her sister's poems after having discovered the forty-odd manuscripts in which Emily had collected her work. Despite promising her sister that she would destroy all correspondence and personal papers, Vinnie sought to have her sister's poetry edited and published by two of Emily's personal correspondents, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd. Four years after Emily Dickinson's death, in 1890, Poems was published by Roberts Brothers, Boston. By the end of 1892, it had already been through eleven editions.[5][6][7]

Vinnie never married, and remained at the Dickinson Homestead until her death.[8]

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References

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  1. ^ "An excerpt from an undated letter from Emily Dickinson to her younger sister, Lavinia". Digital Public Library of America. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  2. ^ "Collection: Todd-Bingham picture collection | Archives at Yale". archives.yale.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
  3. ^ Sewall, Richard B.. 1974. The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0-674-53080-2. p.324
  4. ^ Sewall, Richard B.. 1974. The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0-674-53080-2. p.337
  5. ^ Sewall, Richard B.. 1974. The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0-674-53080-2. p. xxviii
  6. ^ Vega, Carolyn; Kelly, Mike; Werner, Marta; Howe, Susan; Wilbur, Richard (2017), "The Realm of Fox: The Dispersal of Emily Dickinson's Manuscripts" (PDF), The Networked Recluse, The Connected World of Emily Dickinson, Amherst College Press, pp. 5–12, doi:10.3998/mpub.9959167, ISBN 978-1-943208-06-7, JSTOR 10.3998/mpub.9959167, S2CID 252327583, retrieved 2023-04-29
  7. ^ Dickinson, Emily (1890). Poems. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
  8. ^ FIEDLER, SALLY. "A not-so-ordinary 'Sister'". Buffalo News. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
  9. ^ Lopez, Kristen (2021-05-26). "'Dickinson': Anna Baryshnikov on the Intricacies of Physical Comedy and Imitating Demi Moore". IndieWire. Retrieved 2023-04-29.

Further reading

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