Bible Study

Yesterday, I wrote about Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Bible is an antique Volume.”  There are at least three variants of this poem – one begins “The Bible is an untold Volume” – and with one word in line 13, Dickinson considered twelve alternative word choices for “thrilling” (typic, hearty, bonnie, breathless, spacious, tropic, ardent, friendly, magic, pungent, winning, and mellow). 
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Below is a copy of Dickinson’s manuscript (with the alternative word choices), and a copy of the poem as it appeared in 1924’s “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” (“complete” as of 1924) – and in perusing that volume, a mystery presented itself.

As far as I can tell, the poem was first published in a 1924 book edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi called “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson.”  It appears on pages 91 and 92 of the book.

In that same year, it appeared on page 298 of “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson,” published by Little, Brown, and Company and edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi.

Here’s the weird part:

“The Complete Poems” book is divided into five sections.  The first four sections are entitled “Life,” “Nature,” “Love,” and “Time and Eternity,” and the fifth and final section is a reprint of the poems found in a 1914 edition edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi called “The Single Hound.”  The title for that book comes from this short poem:

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be;
Attended by a Single Hound --
Its own Identity.

On page 299 of “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” – in the section five reprint of “The Single Hound” – there is “The Bible is an antique volume,” numbered as poem CIV. 

However, I checked 1914’s “The Single Hound,” and “The Bible is an antique volume” is not included in that book. Poem number CIV in that book is “Dust is the only secret.” I looked through the entire book.  The “Bible” poem is not in there.  I even found a 1915 second printing of “The Single Hound,” and the “Bible” poem is not in there.

​However, the “Bible” poem does appear in the section five reprint of “The Single Hound” in the 1924 edition of “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” – and in that volume,   “Dust is the only secret” is there, but it is listed as poem CVI, not CIV.  
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I did a quick comparison between 1914’s “The Single Hound” and section five of 1924’s “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” (the section with the reprint of “The Single Hound”), and the numbers and poems seem to get mixed up starting at poem number XCIX.

In the 1914 version of the book, poem XCIV is “Who is it seeks my pillow nights.”  In the 1924 section five reprint, poem XCIV is “Through lane it lay, through bramble” – and “Who is it seeks my pillow nights” shows up as number C in that book.  Poem number C in the 1914 edition is “His cheek is his biographer” (which is number CI in the 1924 book). And so on and so forth.  LOL.
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Sooo…to recap:  “The Bible is an antique volume” appears in two editions of Emily Dickinson’s poetry from 1924:  “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson” and “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.”  In the latter, the poem shows up in the fifth section of the book, a reprint of “The Single Hound” from 1914.  However, the poem does NOT even appear in that 1914 volume – nor does it show up in the second printing from 1915.
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Any thoughts as to what happened?