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Emily Dickinson, was born in Amherst to a prominent family and was one of America's most famous poets. Emily had what appeared to be a normal childhood. She was intelligent, had wit, and many friends. She attended Amerherst Academy, a College her grandfather founded. She also attended a year at the Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary. She did not like the religious environment and since her parents asked her home she left.

While in her twenties, Emily led a busy social life and attended many gala events. By her early 30's she started a withdrawal becoming more reclusive with each passing year. She did not leave her home and withdrew when visitors arrived. There were occasions when even beloved people in her life had to speak with her from the other side of her slightly opened door. Because she was almost never seen a myth developed saying that she was always wearing white.

Emily never did marry and lived all her life in the family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Many of her closest friends knew she wrote poetry, because she included poems or lines from poems in the letters she wrote them.. Friends encouraged her to get published. She made the attempt to do so in 1860 but the publisher thwarted her so Emily did not try again. Only eight poems were published during her lifetime. The poems were submitted by her friends without her permission.

Only upon her death at 56, her sister Lavinia found 1768 poems in a drawer, the result of a lifetime of solitary work. No one could possibly have known what a magnificent and prolific writer she was. Upon her death a small selection of her poems were published and from that moment on her works became known making her a special place among the best poets.

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