Category: Ancestors' Brocades

Shock and Awe

2/3/2026

Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson published the first volume of Dickinson’s poems in November of 1890.1890.

Just over one month later a review appeared in The Christian Review. In her book “Ancestors’ Brocades, the Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson,” Todd’s daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, discussed the review:

“In The Christian Register of December 18, 1890, appeared a notice some sentences of which so delighted Lavinia (Emily Dickinson’s sister) that I tried to discover the author. The sentences referred to were, “Seldom have ‘precious things discovered late’ a greater preciousness than these. They seem an argument for immortality .... There are words ‘so full of subtile flame,’ (sic) phrases so packed with strange- ness, force, suggestion, poems so tremulous with tenderness or so bent under the burden of their mystery, that they shock us with almost intolerable delight or awe.”

I noticed that in these remarks, two phrases fell within quotation marks, “precious things discovered late” and “so full of subtile flame,” so I wondered if the author had quoted lines from any of the poems within the newly published volume of Dickinson. I did a bit of exploration to find out, and no – the quoted remarks are not from Dickinson.

“Precious things discovered late” – the opening line in this effusive review – was written by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and these words open his poem “The Arrival.” Click HERE.

The other phrase, “so full of subtile flame,” was written by Francis Beaumont in a poetical epistle to the Mermaid Tavern, an inn in London where a literary club, established by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, was frequented by chief writers of the day:

What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that any one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And has resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.

Info on Beaumont is HERE.

Mable Loomis Todd did a bit of digging herself and discovered the writer of the review was Reverend John. W. Chadwick. She wrote to confirm that it was he who had penned the notice, and Chadwick wrote back.

I’ll get to Chadwick’s response tomorrow. [THE POST CONTINUES HERE.]

Stoned

2/1/2026

My two most recent posts focused on Dickinson’s poem “The Flower must not blame the bee.” In letters to each other, Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson discussed whether or not to include the poem in their second collection of Dickinson’s poems after the first edition had been so successful. They did not – and they did not include it in their third collection either. The poem was not presented to the public until Dickinson’s niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, put it in a collection of Dickinson’s poems that she published in 1935.

Another poem debated by Todd and Higginson was “She laid her docile crescent down.”

In a letter to Higginson dated July 22, 1891, Todd said, “I send ‘She laid her docile crescent down.’ I do not understand it, and although it is beautiful, I omitted it because there were already so many more for Vol. II than had appeared in Vol. I. If you care to include it, I shall approve.”

Evidently, Higginson did not care to rescue the poem. Well, I don’t really know how Higginson responded to Todd’s letter; however, the poem was not included in the second series. However – drumroll, please – it was presented in the third.

By the way, in her book Ancestors’ Brocades, Todd’s daughter Millicent Todd Bingham noted that, “‘She laid her docile crescent down’ was called ‘Epitaph’ by Emily (and titled ‘The Monument” by Todd in the Third Series, page 157). For the second line, 'And this mechanic stone,' there were two alternative readings, ‘And this subjunctive stone,’ or ‘And this confiding stone.’”

One point of clarification: Dickinson did not title the poem “Epitaph.” Instead, in an August 1877 letter to Higginson, Dickinson enclosed four poems: “It sounded as if the streets were running,” “She laid her docile crescent down,” “I have no life but this,” and “After all the birds have been investigated and laid aside.” In that letter, Dickinson presented the four poems with this statement: “I send you a Gale, and an Epitaph – and a Word to a Friend, and a Blue Bird, for Mrs. Higginson. Excuse them if they are untrue –”

More on this poem tomorrow.

Two Lies and a Truth

1/26/2026

A footnote in Millicent Todd Bingham’s “Ancestors’ Brocades” prompted my recent series of posts. Bingham’s mother, Mabel Loomis Todd, had sent a poem to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Bingham’s note about that poem said this:

“The sonnet, written by LeRoy Phillips of the class of 1892 at Amherst College, was published in the Amherst Literary Monthly, June 1891, and again in The New England Magazine, November, 1891…Two other poems to Emily appeared that same year: G. E. Meredith, “The Poems of Emily Dickinson,” The Literary World, Boston, April 11, 1891; and Mary Elwell Storrs, “Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886,” The Springfield Republican, May 22, 1891.”

Below: Millicent Todd Bingham's Ancestors' Brocades and footnote number 7 and page 131.

My latest posts then focused on those three poems. I found Phillips’ sonnet in the June 1891 Amherst Literary Monthly and discussed it (HERE). I found Meredith’s poem in the April 1891 The Literary World and discussed it (HERE). However, I could not find Storrs’ poem in May 1891 Springfield Republican. I found the text of her poem, but I could not find it in its original source, and I discussed the poem HERE and HERE.

Sooo…here’s the first “lie” – and the one “truth” –both over confusion about the date of publication of Storrs’ poem:

Bingham’s note clearly states that Storrs' poem was printed in the May 22, 1891, edition of The Springfield Republican. I found a digitized copy of that issue on the Library of Congress’ website, and I read, reread, and reread it again. Storrs’ poem is not there. I checked all of the May 1891 editions to no avail. I even checked all of the April and June editions. Nothing.
I continued to explore this, and just yesterday I found this note about Storrs’ work in Emily Dickinson’s Reception in the 1890s, edited by Willis J. Buckingham: “Mary Elwell Storrs. ‘Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886.’ Springfield Sunday Republican, May 22, 1892, p. 2.”

Below: Emily Dickinson's Reception in the 1890s edited by Willis J. Buckingham. See the note associated with number 362, the poem by Mary Elwell Storrs.

Buckingham listed the date of publication as May 22, 1892 – not May 22, 1891, as stated by Bingham. Alas, I have yet to find a digitized copy of that edition that I can access, but I suspect that is the true date. I’ll keep looking for a digital copy, though, to confirm this.

Here’s the second “lie,” surrounding my own confusion with the name of one of the poets:

Bingham’s footnote discussed these three works: LeRoy Phillips’ sonnet, G. E. Meredith’s poem, and Storrs' tribute to Dickinson. When I got to the work by G. E. Meredith, I did find a copy of the work as published in The Literary World; however, since I was unfamiliar with Meredith, I went searching, and I found “G”eorge Meredith. He was the only 19th-century poet named “Meredith” to be found, his name was “G”eorge, and his dates fit the narrative – so I wrote about Meredith and his confusing ode to Dickinson. BUT – and here’s the second “lie” – Meredith didn’t write the poem. At least, not this Meredith, not George Meredith.

As I was exploring the first “lie,” i.e., the confusion with the date of publication of Storrs’ poem (discussed above), I happened upon “a list of poems to and about Emily Dickinson published in the last 100 years,” HERE.

The list includes this entry: “Meredith, Gertrude Euphemia. ‘The Poems of Emily (Dickinson).’ Emily Dickinson's Reception in the 1890s: A Documentary History. Ed. Willis Buckingham. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1989. 129.”

Sooo…it was NOT George Meredith who wrote that poem, it was GERTRUDE Meredith. Gertrude Euphemia Meredith, to be exact.

I searched and searched for info on “Gertrude Euphemia Meredith,” but I came up empty. I sincerely apologize, though, to the spirit of George Meredith for the mix up. When I first came across his name, I didn’t even notice that he had no middle initial, “E”! Oops!

So there you have it, “two lies and a truth.”

No Filter?

9/15/2025

To recap: Yesterday I shared a Reels from a young man who posts videos celebrating cinematic history and Hollywood. He declaimed his views on AI filters used on old Hollywood images – “modified to modern taste” – because these new filtered images overtake search results.

“It’s becoming more and more difficult to do research and see the past,” he said, “because we are replacing the past with this AI filtered junk.” He further warned “we are down a really dangerous path where it’s going to become impossible to find anything that is original without looking in books, and it’s going to be harder and harder to find those books.”

His comments called to mind the history of the publication of Dickinson’s poetry. Back in the 1890s, editors Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson “filtered” and modified her poems from the start to satisfy public taste, and it took years to sift through and publish them as she wrote them.

In her book “Ancestors’ Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson,” Millicent Todd Bingham shared what her mother had told her surrounding the editing recommendations and rulings she and Higginson had to make:

“When Emily Dickinson was unknown, her acceptance by the literary world problematical, such decisions were weighty. The poems chosen to introduce her must not be too queer. The editors never ceased to feel handicapped by this limitation.”

Due to the “problematical” nature of Dickinson’s work – including form, punctuation, capitalization, syntax, grammar, and more – established publishers in 1890 weren’t keen on printing her work.

Bingham’s father, David Peck Todd, told her that Colonel Higginson first recommended the poems to Houghton Mifflin Company for publication, as he was one of their readers at the time. They declined. The poems, they said, “were much too queer – the rhymes were all wrong.”

Whenever I come across a tome of Dickinson’s poetry, the first poem I check – to determine if the book contains original versions (i.e., as written by Dickinson) or the filtered versions – is “Because I could not stop for Death.”

If the third stanza reads, “We passed the school where children played / Their lessons scarcely done / We passed the fields of gazing grain / We passed the setting sun,” then I know the book contains edited versions of Dickinson’s poetry.

How do I know? Because Dickinson began the stanza with “We passed the School, where Children strove / At Recess – in the Ring.” Yes, in the original version of the poem, Dickinson rhymed “ring” with “sun” – and that was deemed “too queer” to publish in 1890. By the way, Todd and Higginson also completely deleted the fourth stanza from the poem. I have no idea why.

This editing – sanitizing? – of Dickinson’s poems went on for years. A first series of poems was published in 1890, a second series in 1891, and a third in 1896. The chart below shows dates of other editions, and it wasn’t until 1955 that a “complete” collection of her poems was edited and published by Thomas Johnson – and by this point, Johnson and other editors strived to present the poems as written.

Of his compilation, Johnson said, “The order of the poems is that of the Harvard (variorum) edition. There, where all copies of poems are reproduced, fair copies to recipients are chosen for principal representation.”

R. W. Franklin updated the “complete” edition in 1998, and he reported, “About three fourths of the poems exist in a signal source. For the rest, with from two to seven sources, the policy has been to choose the latest version of the entire poem, thereby giving to the poet, rather than the editor, the ownership of change.”

A recent update, published in 2016 by editor Cristanne Miller, is called Emily Dickinson’s Poems as She Preserved Them.
The poems as originally written. No filter.

Well…

Things do get a bit foggy with some of the poems because Dickinson recorded numerous alternative word choices and phrases. The Miller edition includes the alternate possibilities on the right side of the page (see below).

Reading Between The Lines

8/19/2025

Today’s post is a bit different.

On Substack, from one Dr. Jennifer Weber, I came across a post that said this:

“Most people read to confirm their existing beliefs. A few read to challenge it. Almost nobody reads to replace it.

Thinking without reading is guessing. Reading without thinking is memorizing.”

By the way, Dr. Weber’s profile states this: “Using behavior science to decode how we teach, think, build systems and address what schools and cultures are reinforcing.”

I replied to the post with this: “Interesting. And reading poetry…? (say like Dickinson?)

Someone replied to my statement: “How are ‘reading’ and ‘reading poetry’ different?”

I replied with the following:

“I don’t know Dr. Weber or the focus of her ‘existing beliefs’ on ‘how we teach, think, build systems,’ etc.
Her post showed up on my screen late last night – it was literally the last post I was going to read. LOL – I was so tired, I had said to myself, ‘okay, I’ll look at 10 more posts and then put the damn phone down and go to bed’ – and hers was the 10th.

‘Hmm,’ I thought, ‘this is interesting. I’ll think about it more tomorrow’ – and since prose and poetry are written in such different ways – and open to such different interpretations (even over time as one re-reads them) – I remember thinking last night, ‘I wonder what Dr. Weber’s thoughts might be on the reading of poetry?’ Does that differ from reading prose?

I stumbled upon a poem last week that I’m still trying to figure out – did it ‘confirm my existing beliefs’ – or rattle them?”

I’ll get to that poem tomorrow – or soon, depending upon where this rambling post takes me; however, to recap: prose is different from poetry; writing prose is different from writing poetry (and even writing lyrics – a form of poetry – is different from writing poetry). I’m no reading expert nor am I an expert on the brain – but I daresay the act of listening to prose is different from that of listening to poetry – so I surmise that something in the brain differs when reading prose v. poetry?

Hmm…I don’t know Dr. Weber’s expertise (reading? The brain? other?), but I’ll follow up to see if she has any thoughts on this.

In the meantime – so I don’t ramble off in untold directions – let me close with two passages from Millicent Todd Bingham’s “Ancestors’ Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson”:

The first is from Bingham’s discussion of critics’ reactions to the first posthumous publication of Dickinson’s poetry, which ranged from stinging criticism to rousing praise:

“If a test of great poetry is its capacity for evoking emotion, then Emily Dickinson can meet the test. For it is as true today as it was in 1891 that no one can read it with indifference. Even those who disparage it most (sic) do so with fervor.”

The second is a letter to Bingham’s mother and the editor of the first publications of Dickinson, Mabel Loomis Todd, from a resident who had attended one of her presentations on Dickinson in the summer of 1892:

“Mr. Stedman has lately been trying to define poetry. It is a hard task. Emily Dickinson wrote poetry which embalmed and interpreted the most insignificant things in nature. J. Whitcomb Riley writes

Without, beneath the rose bush stands
A dripping rooster on one leg.

I suppose this is also poetry (it rhymes [i.e. his verses do] better than your friend’s) but it merely helps us see the things without doing much to help us see into them.”

This last excerpt called to mind another poem by an entirely different poet which I’ll share later too (in addition to the one I mentioned earlier); plus (once again) I’ll get to Emily Dickinson’s definition of poetry, and I’ll continue my exploration into reading (prose v. poetry).

Stay tuned.

Stay In Your Lain

7/11/2025

Recent posts have focused on Emily Dickinson’s use of the word “lain” in her poem “I died for Beauty” when the correct word in that instance was “laid."

“For the first editors (of Dickinson’s poetry),” wrote Millicent Todd Bingham in Ancestors Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, “the perennial uncertainty was: which (of Dickinson’s grammatical errors) are mistakes and which are intentional irregularities with a definite function to perform.”

I’ll cover some of Dickinson’s errors and irregularities tomorrow; however, in the case of “I died for Beauty,” Bingham’s mother Mabel Loomis Todd seemed to prefer that a correction be made. In 1890, she wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “And do you think it best to leave the ungrammatical use of ‘lain’ instead of ‘laid’ in ‘When one who died for truth was lain’?”

Higginson wrote back, “I have forwarded yr corrections approved except the ‘lain’ which I think had better stay as it is.”

BTW, as an aside, I tried to find statistical information related to the usage of “lain” over time; however, every frequency chart I came across focused on the verb “lie” instead of its past participle “lain.” I did find this, though: “The past participle ‘lain’ of the verb ‘lie’ (meaning to recline) is not as commonly used as other past participles in modern English. While grammatically correct, many speakers and writers opt for alternative phrasing or the past tense form ‘lay’ instead, particularly in casual speech.”

Back to Dickinson:

In his 1938 book This Was A Poet, Amherst College professor George F. Whicher argued that Dickinson’s grammatical errors – including “lain” for “laid” discussed yesterday – were traceable to the fact that she followed the current spoken usage of her time.

I have not read Whicher’s book; however, I did find this information from a 1938 review of his book in the New York Times:

“Against the accusation that Emily Dickinson wrote slovenly and ungrammatically Professor Whicher rises in wrath. Her poems, he states, have never been carefully edited; often there will be more than one reading, and what would be the better reading has not always been the one printed. Moreover, Emily was brought up in the New England vernacular, which went back to grammatical usage not always that of today.”

In her book Ancestors Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, Millicent Todd Bingham also spoke of Dickinson’s “grammatical vagaries” and “Emily’s idiosyncrasies” (“such as using ‘of’ for ‘by’: ‘A clover’s simple fame / Remembered of the cow’”).

The review continues:

“Thomas Bailey Aldrich tried to improve certain of her poems, shown him, probably, by Colonel Higginson, but only made them worse. Emily was a law unto herself and a law unto her poetry. Even in her rhymes, which often are no rhymes at all, she must be accepted for what she is, a unique literary being. She has her own special province in the world of poetry; in Professor Whicher's carefully thought-out phrasing, ‘the region of dramatic tension between the mind and experience.’”

Creative Writing

6/22/2025

In yesterday’s post, I referenced Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s April 1862 article in The Atlantic entitled “Letter to a Young Contributor.” This is the article to which Emily Dickinson wrote to Higginson to ask, "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?” – and she included four of her poems with her letter.

In the opening line to his article, Higginson states his purpose: “My dear young gentleman or young lady, —for many are the Cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting, —it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one.”

It is that bit about the “feminine handwriting” that I thought I’d touch on today – but with no regard to feminine or masculine – just plain ol’ handwriting. Emily Dickinson’s handwriting.

In her book “Ancestors’ Brocade, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson,” Millicent Todd Bingham shared this passage from her mother Mabel Loomis Todd’s journal about receiving Emily Dickinson’s booklets of poems (delivered to her for editing by Dickinson’s sister Lavinia):

“They looked almost hopeless from a printer’s point of view. The handwriting consisted of styles of three periods, absolutely different one from another. All were written in a hand which to most persona is exceedingly difficult to read, and many words were liable to be mildly misconstrued. The poems were written on both sides of the paper, interlined, altered and the number of suggested changes was baffling.”

Most scholars suggest that changes in Dickinson's handwriting may have corresponded to changes in her vision.
Of course, Todd in her journal mentioned “styles of three periods,” and I found this (not from Todd herself):

Early Period (1850s):
Dickinson's handwriting in the 1850s, especially in her fair-copy drafts, was small, flowing, and modeled after the exemplary hands in penmanship copybooks. Letters within words were often linked, and upper and lowercase letters were clearly distinguishable. This suggests a desire for neatness and legibility in her early work.

Middle Period (1860s):
The 1860s mark a period of intense poetic experimentation for Dickinson, and her handwriting reflects this shift. Her script became more irregular, with wider spacing between words and letters, and an increased slant. The traditional forms of her earlier hand were abandoned, and the alignment on the page became less consistent.

Late Period (1870s onwards):
In the later years, Dickinson's handwriting continued to evolve, becoming more personal and expressive. While the general characteristics of her middle period style persisted, the writing became even looser and more individualistic. She also increasingly favored pencil over pen in her later years.

More on Dickinson's handwriting tomorrow.

Return To The Fold

6/13/2025

“You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em”
~Kenny Rogers, “The Gambler”

When last we met (yesterday), I shared “A Bird came down the Walk,” and noted that Dickinson scholar and editor R. W. Franklin reported the following: “Three (one lost), variant, about summer 1862. The lost manuscript was sent to T. W. Higginson, probably in the fifth letter to him, written about August 1862. Higginson listed it for Mabel Todd on 13 May 1891 as one of the poems he had received (Bingham, AB, 129) and he published it in the October 1891 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.”

Sooo…I checked page 129 of Millicent Todd Bingham’s book “Ancestors’ Brocades” – and actually on page 128 she wrote, “The selection of poems for the second volume (of Dickinson’s work) was nearing completion. Meanwhile, Mr. Higginson was again going over those that Emily had sent to him. He mailed a list of them to my mother.”

Higginson’s letter, transcribed at the bottom of page 128 and top of 129 said the following:

Dear Friend,

I send the list. Let me know which you want copied for you and I’ll send them. All marked (with a check mark) should go in. One verse I copy for the pleasure of copying it, though you may have it.”

Ever cordially,
T. W. H.

The letter was sent May 13, 1891, and the poem he copied was the following:

Lay this Laurel on the One
Too intrinsic for Renown –
Laurel – vail your deathless Tree –
Him you chasten, that is He!

Higginson also included the list of poems he had received from Dickinson over the years, and it did include “A Bird came down the Walk.”

Back to Franklin’s comments. He said, “The lost manuscript was sent to T. W. Higginson, probably in the fifth letter to him, written about August 1862.”

However, when one checks Thomas Johnson’s notes on that letter, he stated the following:

“With this letter ED enclosed two poems: "Before I got my Eye put out,' and 'I cannot dance upon my Toes.'"

He does not mention “A Bird came down the Walk” at all – even as a possibility as a lost manuscript.

Furthermore, Cristanne Miller does not include “A Bird came down the Walk” in her “Index of Poems” sent with letters (or poems sent as letters) in her volume “The Letters of Emily Dickinson.” However, that poem does indeed show up on Higginson’s “List of Poems” that he had received from Dickinson.

Back to Franklin: He said that Higginson had published the poem in the October 1891 edition of The Atlantic – so I went to take a look.

Sure enough, the poem is there, and it is part of an article by Higginson – written five years after the poet's death – entitled “The Letters of Emily Dickinson.” In the article, he indicates that the poem was included with the SECOND letter he’d received from Dickinson, not the FIFTH (as Franklin stated).

However, when you look up that letter – the second one – and Johnson has this to say:

“Higginson says in his Atlantic Monthly article introducing the letter…that the enclosed poems were two: 'Your riches taught me poverty,' and 'A bird came down the walk.' But the evidence after study of the folds in the letters and poems suggest that he was in error. The enclosures seem to have been: 'There came a Day at Summer's full,' 'Of all the Sounds despatched abroad,' and 'South Winds jostle them.'"

Hence my inclusion of the lines from Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler.” Maybe the poem was included with that fifth letter after all.

We may never know; but I do wonder why Miller didn’t include it in her book of Dickinson’s letters – even with a footnote explaining the confusion over which letter it was included with.

Perhaps one day soon I’ll email her to ask.

Corrective Measures

1/27/2025

Recent posts have focused on edits and corrections editors made with the first edition of poems by Emily Dickinson. Yesterday I focused on the use of “lain” (vs. “laid” – for the ever confounding verbs “lay” and “lie”), specifically in the poems “I died for beauty, but was scarce” and “How many times these low feet staggered.”

“Even outsiders protested” (about issues with grammar) wrote Millicent Todd Bingham in “Ancestors’ Brocades,” her 1945 account of “Emily Dickinson’s Literary Debut.”

Bingham shared a letter from a school principal to Thomas Wentworth Higginson about the “lain”/”laid” issue in the two poems mentioned above, and across the top of that letter he wrote, “I have discouraged this” (i.e., making any change).

Between the third and fourth printing of the first edition of “Poems,” co-editor Mabel Loomis Todd wrote to Higginson to discuss some misprints in the book.

“The first (in the poem beginning ‘A wounded deer leaps highest’) is on page 20 – of which I wrote you some time ago – in the line ‘In which it cautious arm,’ printed “cautiONS, although I three times corrected it in the proof.”

Later in the letter she wrote, “And on page 54 (in the poem ‘My river runs to thee’), in the last line, I am sure she intended it to be two lines instead,

Say, sea,
Take me!

and that is very piquant and like her.”

A third suggestion involved the poem "As if some little Arctic flower":

“Should not the ‘only,’ beginning the last line, be instead the final word in the preceding line? It it read

What then? Why nothing, only
Your inference therefrom!

would not the rhythm be better?”

Finally, she re-visited the “lain”/”laid” issue in “I died for Beauty, but was scarce.”

Bingham wrote in “Ancestors’ Brocades,” “Except the last, all the suggested corrections were made. ‘Was lain’ remains to this day, as Mr. Higginson decreed.”

Daddy Dearest

1/23/2025

I’ve been writing about the initial editing of Dickinson’s poetry by her first editors/publishers, Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. They agreed to sort the poems in Todd’s possession into three categories:

A: Those “of most original thought” and “in the best form.”
B: Those with “striking ideas” but “with too many of her peculiarities of construction.”
C: Those considered “too obscure” or “too irregular in form.”

Of course, all of this work took place in 1889, and the first publication debuted in 1890. Todd documented the process in a 1930 article for Harper’s Magazine, and Todd’s daughter Millicent Todd Bingham also wrote about it in her 1945 book “Ancestors’ Brocades.”

In that book, Bingham also included info about her father, David Peck Todd, and his contribution to the process:

“The part played by my father, especially in seeing the poems through the press has hitherto been overlooked. For several years he gave a good deal of time to the work – to proofreading in particular. ‘We made independent lists of the ratings A, B, and C, and then compared them,’ he told me, adding that ‘we used to sit up all night to read the proof.’”

From 1881 to 1917, David Peck Todd was a professor of astronomy and director of the observatory at Amherst College. For more on his life, check HERE.

Below left: David Peck Todd and Mabel Loomis Todd; below right: Millicent Todd (later Millicent Todd Bingham).