Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830. She was a studious child and attended Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary as a young woman before returning to her family home. Dickinson was a prolific poet, writing nearly 1,800 poems, but fewer than a dozen were published throughout her lifetime. Dickinson lived a mostly reclusive life, and in her later life, she rarely left home, conducting almost all of her socializing through written correspondence. After a long depression, Dickinson died of kidney disease at age 55. Today, she is considered one of the most important American poets.