Dickinson’s Fascicles, Beginnings and Endings

Abstract

To create an orderly assessment (and, indirectly, a packaging) of her writing, Emily Dickinson drew upon the materials available to her in her Amherst home. Even as she chose among different kinds of paper, Dickinson maintained a steady incorporation of her skills of both sewing and aesthetic arrangement. From the months of creating the first fascicles—probably sometime during 1858—to the demise of that practice, sometime during 1864 in the midst of the stress of dealing with her eye illness, Dickinson was consistent in her practice of dividing her poems into book-length packets, creating a showplace for her achievements and grouping poems with others that explored similar themes.