The archive makes high-resolution images of Dickinson's surviving manuscripts available in open access, and provides readers with a website through which they can view images of manuscripts held in multiple libraries and archives.
Only a handful of Dickinson's poems appeared in print during her lifetime and none under her own name; those few poems were sent to publishers by friends, and she did not have an opportunity to review them before they were printed. At her death in 1886 Dickinson left behind a wealth of writings that had never been printed: hundreds of manuscript poems in her personal effects, and hundreds more poems and letters sent to her correspondents.
Dickinson’s manuscript page is the focus of Emily Dickinson Archive. A search of the full text or first line from a poem produces images of all the manuscript versions of the poem.
This archive is an amazing resource that provides for scholars an opportunity to closely study the work of this great American poet.
