Tomorrow, May 15, 2025, marks the 139th anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death. She died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55.
She wrote her final letter to her cousins Frances and Louise Norcross a few days before her death, and it consisted of just two words, “Called back.”
Dickinson scholar Thomas Johnson wrote this about her 1886 letter (and mentions an earlier letter from 1885):
“It was in a letter written to the Norcrosses in January 1885 (no. 962) that ED spoke of having read Hugh Conway's Called Back. During the second week in May (1886) she probably came to know that she had but a short time to live. This letter was evidently her last. On the thirteenth she went into a coma. Vinnie sent for Austin and for Dr. Bigelow, who remained with her much of the day. She never regained consciousness, and died about six in the evening, Saturday, 15 May 1886.”
Concerning the novel she mentioned in her 1885 letter, Wikipedia provides this information: "Called Back is an 1883 mystery/romance novel written by Englishman Frederick John Fargus under the pseudonym Hugh Conway."
In the letter to her cousins in 1885, Dickinson said, “Loo asked ‘what books’ we were wooing now - watching like a vulture for Walter Cross's life of his wife. A friend sent me Called Back,. It is a haunting story, and as loved Mr. Bowles used to say, ‘greatly impressive to me.’”
LOL – when I read that letter in full (as well as many others), I wondered if Dickinson had (undiagnosed) ADD. The letter opens with this, “Had we less to say to those we love, perhaps we should say it oftener, but the attempt comes, then the inundation, then it is all over, as is said of the dead.”
Then she moves to the discussion of the books, to information about an acquaintance who has died, to some information about someone’s move to Cambridge (with a religious reference), and then on to a call…to work? (i.e. housework?) to end the day?
She then closes the letter with another Dickinsonian pearl of wisdom: “That we are permanent temporarily, it is warm to know, though we know no more."
The complete letter from 1885 is HERE. Johnson’s notes on the 1885 letter are HERE.
Of course, her 1886 letter to her cousins consisted of just the two words, Called Back, taken from the title of Conway’s novel, and the two words also appear on the poet’s grave stone.
She wrote her final letter to her cousins Frances and Louise Norcross a few days before her death, and it consisted of just two words, “Called back.”
Dickinson scholar Thomas Johnson wrote this about her 1886 letter (and mentions an earlier letter from 1885):
“It was in a letter written to the Norcrosses in January 1885 (no. 962) that ED spoke of having read Hugh Conway's Called Back. During the second week in May (1886) she probably came to know that she had but a short time to live. This letter was evidently her last. On the thirteenth she went into a coma. Vinnie sent for Austin and for Dr. Bigelow, who remained with her much of the day. She never regained consciousness, and died about six in the evening, Saturday, 15 May 1886.”
Concerning the novel she mentioned in her 1885 letter, Wikipedia provides this information: "Called Back is an 1883 mystery/romance novel written by Englishman Frederick John Fargus under the pseudonym Hugh Conway."
In the letter to her cousins in 1885, Dickinson said, “Loo asked ‘what books’ we were wooing now - watching like a vulture for Walter Cross's life of his wife. A friend sent me Called Back,. It is a haunting story, and as loved Mr. Bowles used to say, ‘greatly impressive to me.’”
LOL – when I read that letter in full (as well as many others), I wondered if Dickinson had (undiagnosed) ADD. The letter opens with this, “Had we less to say to those we love, perhaps we should say it oftener, but the attempt comes, then the inundation, then it is all over, as is said of the dead.”
Then she moves to the discussion of the books, to information about an acquaintance who has died, to some information about someone’s move to Cambridge (with a religious reference), and then on to a call…to work? (i.e. housework?) to end the day?
She then closes the letter with another Dickinsonian pearl of wisdom: “That we are permanent temporarily, it is warm to know, though we know no more."
The complete letter from 1885 is HERE. Johnson’s notes on the 1885 letter are HERE.
Of course, her 1886 letter to her cousins consisted of just the two words, Called Back, taken from the title of Conway’s novel, and the two words also appear on the poet’s grave stone.
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