After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America's Greatest Poet

by Julie Dobrow

Overview

The untold story of the extraordinary mother and daughter who brought Emily Dickinson’s genius to light.

Despite Emily Dickinson’s world renown, the story of the two women most responsible for her initial posthumous publication—Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham—has remained in the shadows of the archives. A rich and compelling portrait of women who refused to be confined by the social mores of their era, After Emily explores Mabel and Millicent’s complex bond, as well as the powerful literary legacy they shared.

Mabel’s tangled relationships with the Dickinsons—including a thirteen-year extramarital relationship with Emily’s brother, Austin—roiled the small town of Amherst, Massachusetts. After Emily’s death, Mabel’s connection to the family and reputation as an intelligent, artistic, and industrious woman in her own right led her to the enormous trove of poems Emily left behind. So began the herculean task of transcribing, editing, and promoting Emily’s work, a task that would consume and complicate the lives of both Mabel and her daughter. As the popularity of the poems grew, legal issues arose between the Dickinson and Todd families, dredging up their scandals: the affair, the ownership of Emily’s poetry, and the right to define the so-called "Belle of Amherst."

Utilizing hundreds of overlooked letters and diaries to weave together the stories of three unstoppable women, Julie Dobrow explores the intrigue of Emily Dickinson’s literary beginnings. After Emily sheds light on the importance of the earliest editions of Emily’s work—including the controversial editorial decisions made to introduce her singular genius to the world—and reveals the surprising impact Mabel and Millicent had on the poet we know today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393249262
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/30/2018
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Julie Dobrow is a professor and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Tufts University. Her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine and the Huffington Post, among others. She lives outside of Boston.

Table of Contents

1886 Map of Amherst x

Preface xiii

Introduction One Fine Day in May (1886) 1

Chapter 1 Arriving in Amherst (1856-1881) 9

Chapter 2 Meeting and Courting the Dickinsons (1881-1882) 29

Chapter 3 Soaring Love and Seething Tensions (1883-1894) 53

Chapter 4 Dickinsonian Inspiration: Mabel's Creative Output (1883-1893) 82

Chapter 5 Lingering Puritanism and Millicent's Sensibilities (1884-1897) 92

Chapter 6 Embracing Emily's Poems (1886-1897) 111

Chapter 7 Losing Austin, Finding Mabel (1895-1904) 158

Chapter 8 Suing the "Queen of Amherst" (1897-1898) 176

Chapter 9 Traveling and Travails (1899-1917) 192

Chapter 10 "Sincerely, Joe Thomas" (1918-1919) 210

Chapter 11 Fighting to Define Emily Dickinson (1920-1929) 224

Chapter 12 Bringing Lost Poems to Light (1930-1939) 245

Chapter 13 Dealing with "Dickinsoniana" (1940-1955) 272

Chapter 14 Battling over Emily's Papers (1946-1959) 295

Chapter 15 Seeking Closure and Meaning (1960-1968) 325

Chapter 16 Unpacking the Camphorwood Chest 342

Afterword Sorting through the Clutter 363

Acknowledgments 371

Notes 379

Text Credits 409

Illustration Credits 411

Index 417

Editorial Reviews

05/28/2018
Tufts University professor Dobrow chronicles the lives of two of Emily Dickinson’s earliest champions and editors, the mother-daughter team of Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham, shining a light on how they shaped “the contours of poetry as we know it today.” Mabel, an author, was also the longtime lover of Dickinson’s brother, Austin, bringing her into conflict with Austin’s wife, Sue, and Emily’s sister, Lavinia. These feuds frequently stalled publication of Dickinson’s work and, as Mabel neared the end of her life, she implored Millicent to continue working on the poet’s as-yet unpublished output. Dobrow authoritatively traces the tortuous editorial and publication process that first brought Dickinson’s work to public attention, and sensitively explores her subjects’ interior lives, showing how Mabel suffered from being the other woman in Austin’s life and how Millicent struggled growing up in her charismatic mother’s shadow. Quotes from Mabel’s diary demonstrate her intuitive understanding of Dickinson’s greatness, such as when she declared that the poems “seemed to open the door into a wider universe.” Impeccably researched using more than 700 boxes of the Todds’ personal documents, Dobrow’s narrative gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of two tireless advocates for Dickinson’s work, demonstrating how poet and editors alike were “all women pushing up against the boundaries of their times.” (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Julie Dobrow has grabbed a tiger by the tail in her skillful reanalysis of Mabel Loomis Todd’s role in recognizing, preserving, publishing, and promoting Emily Dickinson’s powerful poetry…Dobrow weaves the vitality of the personal into her scholarship, surprising and enlightening readers about one of America’s greatest literary rescues."

Polly Longsworth

"The entire nuanced and complicated story of Mabel Loomis Todd, Millicent Todd Bingham, and Emily Dickinson is ours at last in this diligently sourced and compellingly written history."

Marianne Curling

"Dobrow has succeeded in illuminating more fully than ever before the intricate net of desires, both conscious and unconscious, that led Mabel Loomis Todd and Millicent Todd Bingham to undertake the editing of Emily Dickinson’s writings. In Dobrow’s rendering, biography fuses with American tragedy. After Emily is a book for and of our time: a meditation on the nature of agency and the role of affect in women’s lives and writing."

Marta Werner

"Mesmerizing... If you’re interested in [Emily Dickinson], intellectual property issues, or juicy behind-the-scenes literary history, After Emily is your book."

Michael Dirda

"An honest, sometimes searing portrait of the two idiosyncratic women, mother and daughter, who between them delivered Emily Dickinson’s 'letter to the World'— rescuing this genius hermit from obscurity by deciphering and publishing her sheaves of high voltage poetry…Riveting, unblinkered, sad, and brave, After Emily makes the case for these two posthumous amanuenses as urgent agents of critical work we came so near to losing."

Gregory Maguire

"[Dobrow] serves as a kind of fiercely clever detective in stitching together Todd’s remarkable influence and all the other little intrigues behind the marketing of Dickinson and her legacy."

American Scholar

★ 2018-06-27
An elegant recovery of the two women without whom "Because I could not stop for Death" likely wouldn't be required reading for American high school students.During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) didn't publish much, but after she died, her brother's mistress took up the cause of Dickinson's verse. Mabel Loomis Todd is one of the stock characters of the Dickinson story. Dobrow (Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies/Tufts Univ.) spent years in the massive Todd archives—Yale's Sterling Library holds more than 700 boxes of diaries, journals, and notes about psychiatric sessions—in order to recount, with sympathy and nuance, Todd's near-obsession with editing Dickinson, securing a publisher, and publicizing the poet on the lecture circuit. While telling Todd's story, the author sensitively explores the (much-criticized) editorial choices Todd made and the question of who was responsible for the "legend" of Emily-the-recluse-in-white. Less well known than Todd is her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, who completes Dobrow's twinned biography. Bingham grew up immersed in her mother's obsession with Dickinson: "Initiation into the vagaries of Emily's handwriting is one of the earliest rites I can recall," she once said. As an adult, she took over the work, publishing yet-unseen poems and letters and delving into arguments about copyright and archive battles. (Dobrow manages to make wrangling between university libraries fascinating.) The author reduces neither woman to her devotion to Dickinson. She attends to their professional accomplishments, world travels, marriages, and passion for conservation. The book, then, is about the Belle of Amherst, but it is also about being a working woman, a mother, and a daughter.All entries in the voluminous literature on Dickinson are controversial—some will bristle at such a positive depiction of Todd or suggest that some of Dickinson's relatives deserve more charity or credit. One hopes the controversy will simply bring increased attention to Dobrow's fresh, remarkable account.

Kirkus Reviews

"An extraordinary feat in rendering a tale of almost dizzying intrigue."

Ron Suskind

"Elegantly and movingly told.… [Dobrow] has done an admirable job sifting through the detritus to distill the essence of these women, their work and the world they inhabited."

BookPage - Robert Weibezahl

"Long overdue.…At the end of her book, Ms. Dobrow wonders what Mabel and Millicent would think of her good work. Doubtless, they’d be very pleased."

Wall Street Journal - Brenda Wineapple

"Provocative.… [After Emily] aims a spotlight into a shadowy, scandal-laced corner of Amherst in the late 19th century, adding valuable, and fraught, backstory to how Dickinson’s poetry… got published and marketed."

Boston Globe - Nina MacLaughlin

"After Emily is an essential contribution not just to Dickinsonian scholarship but to understanding the forces of a hundred years of American history.… Dobrow’s beautiful prose is a joy to the ear, her thoughtful relationship to her subjects is delightfully captured, and the peeks throughout into the mind of Emily Dickinson are a revelation, even as her exploration of her two main characters is a valuable addition to women’s biography that will offer much to scholars and pleasure readers alike."

femmeliterate - Misty Urban

"[Dobrow] serves as a kind of fiercely clever detective in stitching together Todd’s remarkable influence and all the other little intrigues behind the marketing of Dickinson and her legacy."

Jerome Charynn Scholar

"[Julie] Dobrow’s intimate account reveals how decisively [Mabel and Millicent’s] efforts shaped perceptions of the white-clad recluse and her visionary poems. Scandal and pathos abound."

The New Yorker

"After Emily situates the Todds in a richly documented, beautifully written, and persuasive family romance."

Emily Dickinson Journal - Vivian Pollak

"[Dobrow] serves as a kind of fiercely clever detective in stitching together Todd’s remarkable influence and all the other little intrigues behind the marketing of Dickinson and her legacy."

American Scholar - Jerome Charyn