Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and her Family’s Feuds

Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and her Family’s Feuds by Lyndall Gordon

PS 1541 .Z5 G66 2010

“In 1882, Emily Dickinson’s brother, Austin, began a passionate love affair with Mabel Todd, a young Amherst faculty wife, setting in motion a series of events that would forever change the lives of the Dickinson family.  The feud that erupted as a result has continued for more than a century.  Award-winning biographer Lyndall Gordon tells the riveting story of the Dickinsons and reveals Emily as a very different woman from the pale, lovelorn recluse who exists in the popular imagination.  Thanks to her unprecedented use of letters, diaries and legal documents, Gordon digs deep into the life and work of Emily Dickinson and proposes a groundbreaking new solution to the secret behind the poet’s insistent seclusion, presenting a woman beyond her time who found love, spiritual sustenance and immortality all on her own terms.

An enthralling story of creative genius, filled with illicit passion and betrayal, Lives Like Loaded Guns promises to forever change the way we view one of America’s most important literary figures.” – publisher description