Emily Dickinson
Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts
Marker Inscription
The home of Emily Dickinson has been designated a Registered National Historic Landmark under the provisions of the Historic Sites Act of August 21, 1935. This site possesses exceptional value in commemorating and illustrating the history of the United States
Erected by Department of the Interior National Park Service
The Story
This Amherst house was the lifelong home of Emily Dickinson, the reclusive poet who, in the 1850s and 1860s, quietly wrote nearly 1,800 poems that almost no one saw in her lifetime. Working in near-total privacy, she forged a startlingly modern voice of dashes, slant rhyme, and compressed intensity. The federal government has recognized the home as a National Historic Landmark for its exceptional value to American history.
Why it matters
Dickinson is now counted among the greatest of all American poets, and her home is a shrine to the idea that world-changing art can be made in obscurity by a woman writing for herself.
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