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Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
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Manufacturer: Paris Press
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Our Price: $13.57
You Save: $ 6.38 ( 32% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Paris Press
Publisher: Paris Press
Average Customer Rating:
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Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.4
EAN: 9780963818362
ISBN: 0963818368
Label: Paris Press
Manufacturer: Paris Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 315
Publication Date: 1998-10-01
Publisher: Paris Press
Studio: Paris Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.4
EAN: 9780963818362
ISBN: 0963818368
Label: Paris Press
Manufacturer: Paris Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 315
Publication Date: 1998-10-01
Publisher: Paris Press
Studio: Paris Press
Editorial Review of Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
For the first time, selections from Emily Dickinson's thirty-six year correspondence to her neighbor and sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Dickinson, are compiled in a single volume. Open Me Carefully invites a dramatic new understanding of Emily Dickinson's life and work, overcoming a century of censorship and misinterpretation.
For the millions of readers who love Emily Dickinson's poetry, Open Me Carefully brings new light to the meaning of the poet's life and work. Gone is Emily as lonely spinster--here is Dickinson in her own words, passionate and fully alive.
"With spare commentary, Smith ... and Hart ... let these letters speak for themselves. Most important, unlike previous editors who altered line breaks to fit their sense of what is poetry or prose, Hart and Smith offer faithful reproductions of the letters' genre-defying form as the words unravel spectacularly down the original page."-Renee Tursi, The New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews of Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Mercy!
Review: My only disappointment with this book lies with myself for not having the frame of reference inre the Bible, the classics and the news & literature of the day, to give the writing presented here the depth and flavor so tantalizingly near. Though some things transcend meanings, of course, I felt a lack of reference too in the language private and shared only between correspondents. There is, through no fault of the editors, a very noticeable mostly silence where one woman's voice surely rang, whispered, shouted, strode in over four decades of on-going intelligent and warm, in the warmest sense, and yet often distant interaction. It left me, the book, feeling like I'd stumbled upon a treasure box of letters in a sunny attic aching for the second companion box to tell the rest of the story.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Open me not
Review: Most of Emily Dickinson's letters have been public for a very long time and have been the center of a debate that started just after her death in 1886. The debate has been between two major factions: 1) Emily's sister-in-law, Sue Dickinson and her children, 2) Mabel Loomis Todd, Emily's brother Austin's mistress of 13 years (Emily's brother Austin, was Sue's husband) and Mabel's children (and the relatives of the above mentioned and their descendants!)
Mabel Loomis Todd was 26 years younger than Sue and was the mistress of Sue's husband and Emily's brother, Austin. There was no love lost between Mabel and Sue. Mabel's knowledge of Emily came mostly from Austin with whom she was intimate for 13 years, and from Emily's poems and letters. Austin was very close to his sister, Emily during all of his life. (He lived next door to her with his wife Sue.) Mabel never met Emily face to face but by then Emily saw no one except old, trusted friends and was considered a recluse in Amherst.
"Open Me Carefully" comes down on the Sue side of the debate and discounts Mabel and Austin's point of view. (The authors refer to Austin and Mabel's affair only once, in passing, in the Introduction: "[Sue was] distracted by the loss [death] of Emily and by her husband's flagrant (my emphasis) affair with Mabel Loomis Todd...") But there is very little discussion of the different scholarly views and opinions of Emily's emotional life and even though there is an impressive number of footnotes at the end of the book, there is little evidence of scholarship in the book itself except for smoke that seems to rise from scholarly fires burning elsewhere.
The authors' introductory text strongly implies that Emily's feelings for Sue were sexual, even though the authors don't state this explicitly and never use the word 'lesbian.' For example on the first page of Section I, we are told "The letters from Emily to Susan and drafts of letters from Susan indicate that Susan is the object of passionate attachment for both brother and sister." On the second page of Section II we read: "These 'Dollie' (Sue's nickname) poems are deeply romantic and erotic..." In the Introduction we are told "The ardor of Dickinson's late teens and early twenties matured and deepened over the decades and the romantic and erotic expression from Emily to Susan continued until Dickinson's death in May 1886." In addition, the title of the book and the picture on its cover imply that Sue and Emily were related erotically or, dare I say, sexually?
The burden of "Open Me Carefully" should be to demonstrate that Emily and Sue had a life-long 'lesbian muse' relationship not simply to tell us they had one. Also, this book should not include any letters or poems that cannot be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" to have been sent to Sue or intended for her. If consensus cannot be arrived at within the community of Dickinson scholars this fact should be clearly stated.
I should add that I think it is certainly possible that the theses of the book are true. I just don't believe that they have been proved or even demonstrated to be probably true.
Emily's letters and poems rate five stars but this arrangement of them isn't convincing and the extent of Sue's influence on Emily remains uncertain.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not a big Dickinson fan, but...
Review: I still loved this book, and I think that reading her personal letters gave me more insight into her as a fellow human being, which in turn allowed me to take a new look at her poetry. This is one of the few books of letters I've read where I found that the footnotes were just as interesting as the letters themselves. There is so much information contained in this book that one would think it would be almost burdonsome (or boring) to read, but it's not. I have to say I prefer Dickinson's prose to her poetry. Her letters flow beautifully and are full of spirit and light and wit. I guess the short of it is that reading this book of letters helped me to better connect to her humanity. Of course, I have a passion for books of letters because there is something delicious about feeling as though you are a voyeur looking in on the most private parts of someone else's life. Somehow you can get a far more intimate and interesting view from someone's letters to another than you ever could by simply reading a biography.
Even if you aren't a fan of Dickinson, give this book a chance. Beauty is always worth a read.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Great Sue-Mabel Debate Continues
Review: As most of you know, the Sue-Mabel controversy began virtually at ED's death (Vinnie gave Sue first shot at editing ED's poems, then turned the job over to Mabel when Sue couldn't come through) and continues to this day, one of the most fascinating things in literary history. Sue and Mabel, and their respective daughters, were in a bitter competition to publish the ED poems in their control and to preserve their "place" in ED's history. In 1966, Sewall's ground-breaking ED biography primarily relied on the Mabel side for information, so a negative picture of Sue was created. The recent Habegger biography relied on the Sue side, and a more humane picture of Sue came out.
"Open Me Carefully" comes down firmly on the Sue side of the great divide, arguing for a much greater role in ED's life and work than heretofore granted Sue (though I don't think the author's views are quite as revolutionary as the authors claim). A lot of axes are ground here, and frankly, I disagreed with many of their conclusions. I don't think they took sufficient account of Sewall's point that ED presented a different "face" to each of her correspondents (though, as in so much else, Habegger disagrees), nor evaluated in a balanced way the similar or even greater passion ED brought in her correspondence to Bowles, Higginson, Lord, and others. There really is very little evidence that Sue (herself a rather mediocre poet) had any significant impact on ED's stunning style and insight.
Nonetheless, I gave it five stars for its presentation and its excellent explication of an argument that, while I don't agree with it, should be evaluated by all interested ED students.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Her breast is fit for pearls
Review: Any Emily Dickinson historian or student will want this book. It contains the lost puzzle pieces, released by Sue's family, to the mysterious Emily Dickinson. Sue wanted this story told at the right time. The sheer talent in these writings is amazing. Here was a girl who spent her days as a recluse doing laundry and dishes and writing letters and carrying them around in her pockets. The pen and paper, written word, was what connected the lone Emily to her outside world, her loves, her friends, and now to the rest of us. A must have for any writer who studies her.
Review Summary: Mercy!
Review: My only disappointment with this book lies with myself for not having the frame of reference inre the Bible, the classics and the news & literature of the day, to give the writing presented here the depth and flavor so tantalizingly near. Though some things transcend meanings, of course, I felt a lack of reference too in the language private and shared only between correspondents. There is, through no fault of the editors, a very noticeable mostly silence where one woman's voice surely rang, whispered, shouted, strode in over four decades of on-going intelligent and warm, in the warmest sense, and yet often distant interaction. It left me, the book, feeling like I'd stumbled upon a treasure box of letters in a sunny attic aching for the second companion box to tell the rest of the story.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Open me not
Review: Most of Emily Dickinson's letters have been public for a very long time and have been the center of a debate that started just after her death in 1886. The debate has been between two major factions: 1) Emily's sister-in-law, Sue Dickinson and her children, 2) Mabel Loomis Todd, Emily's brother Austin's mistress of 13 years (Emily's brother Austin, was Sue's husband) and Mabel's children (and the relatives of the above mentioned and their descendants!)
Mabel Loomis Todd was 26 years younger than Sue and was the mistress of Sue's husband and Emily's brother, Austin. There was no love lost between Mabel and Sue. Mabel's knowledge of Emily came mostly from Austin with whom she was intimate for 13 years, and from Emily's poems and letters. Austin was very close to his sister, Emily during all of his life. (He lived next door to her with his wife Sue.) Mabel never met Emily face to face but by then Emily saw no one except old, trusted friends and was considered a recluse in Amherst.
"Open Me Carefully" comes down on the Sue side of the debate and discounts Mabel and Austin's point of view. (The authors refer to Austin and Mabel's affair only once, in passing, in the Introduction: "[Sue was] distracted by the loss [death] of Emily and by her husband's flagrant (my emphasis) affair with Mabel Loomis Todd...") But there is very little discussion of the different scholarly views and opinions of Emily's emotional life and even though there is an impressive number of footnotes at the end of the book, there is little evidence of scholarship in the book itself except for smoke that seems to rise from scholarly fires burning elsewhere.
The authors' introductory text strongly implies that Emily's feelings for Sue were sexual, even though the authors don't state this explicitly and never use the word 'lesbian.' For example on the first page of Section I, we are told "The letters from Emily to Susan and drafts of letters from Susan indicate that Susan is the object of passionate attachment for both brother and sister." On the second page of Section II we read: "These 'Dollie' (Sue's nickname) poems are deeply romantic and erotic..." In the Introduction we are told "The ardor of Dickinson's late teens and early twenties matured and deepened over the decades and the romantic and erotic expression from Emily to Susan continued until Dickinson's death in May 1886." In addition, the title of the book and the picture on its cover imply that Sue and Emily were related erotically or, dare I say, sexually?
The burden of "Open Me Carefully" should be to demonstrate that Emily and Sue had a life-long 'lesbian muse' relationship not simply to tell us they had one. Also, this book should not include any letters or poems that cannot be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" to have been sent to Sue or intended for her. If consensus cannot be arrived at within the community of Dickinson scholars this fact should be clearly stated.
I should add that I think it is certainly possible that the theses of the book are true. I just don't believe that they have been proved or even demonstrated to be probably true.
Emily's letters and poems rate five stars but this arrangement of them isn't convincing and the extent of Sue's influence on Emily remains uncertain.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not a big Dickinson fan, but...
Review: I still loved this book, and I think that reading her personal letters gave me more insight into her as a fellow human being, which in turn allowed me to take a new look at her poetry. This is one of the few books of letters I've read where I found that the footnotes were just as interesting as the letters themselves. There is so much information contained in this book that one would think it would be almost burdonsome (or boring) to read, but it's not. I have to say I prefer Dickinson's prose to her poetry. Her letters flow beautifully and are full of spirit and light and wit. I guess the short of it is that reading this book of letters helped me to better connect to her humanity. Of course, I have a passion for books of letters because there is something delicious about feeling as though you are a voyeur looking in on the most private parts of someone else's life. Somehow you can get a far more intimate and interesting view from someone's letters to another than you ever could by simply reading a biography.
Even if you aren't a fan of Dickinson, give this book a chance. Beauty is always worth a read.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Great Sue-Mabel Debate Continues
Review: As most of you know, the Sue-Mabel controversy began virtually at ED's death (Vinnie gave Sue first shot at editing ED's poems, then turned the job over to Mabel when Sue couldn't come through) and continues to this day, one of the most fascinating things in literary history. Sue and Mabel, and their respective daughters, were in a bitter competition to publish the ED poems in their control and to preserve their "place" in ED's history. In 1966, Sewall's ground-breaking ED biography primarily relied on the Mabel side for information, so a negative picture of Sue was created. The recent Habegger biography relied on the Sue side, and a more humane picture of Sue came out.
"Open Me Carefully" comes down firmly on the Sue side of the great divide, arguing for a much greater role in ED's life and work than heretofore granted Sue (though I don't think the author's views are quite as revolutionary as the authors claim). A lot of axes are ground here, and frankly, I disagreed with many of their conclusions. I don't think they took sufficient account of Sewall's point that ED presented a different "face" to each of her correspondents (though, as in so much else, Habegger disagrees), nor evaluated in a balanced way the similar or even greater passion ED brought in her correspondence to Bowles, Higginson, Lord, and others. There really is very little evidence that Sue (herself a rather mediocre poet) had any significant impact on ED's stunning style and insight.
Nonetheless, I gave it five stars for its presentation and its excellent explication of an argument that, while I don't agree with it, should be evaluated by all interested ED students.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Her breast is fit for pearls
Review: Any Emily Dickinson historian or student will want this book. It contains the lost puzzle pieces, released by Sue's family, to the mysterious Emily Dickinson. Sue wanted this story told at the right time. The sheer talent in these writings is amazing. Here was a girl who spent her days as a recluse doing laundry and dishes and writing letters and carrying them around in her pockets. The pen and paper, written word, was what connected the lone Emily to her outside world, her loves, her friends, and now to the rest of us. A must have for any writer who studies her.