In her will, which is dated 19 October 1875, Dickinson left her entire estate to her sister Lavinia: “I give devise and bequeath to my only sister Lavinia N. Dickinson all my estate, real and personal, to have and to hold the same to her and her heirs, and assigns forever.”
The precise nature of Dickinson’s “direction” to Lavinia remains unclear, though. According to Mabel Loomis Todd, Lavinia was uncertain about Dickinson’s exact “wishes” as to what to do with all of her personal effects.
Following Dickinson’s death and prior to contacting Todd – this according to Todd – Lavinia had destroyed all of Emily’s correspondence as per “Emily’s direction.”
Todd then wrote the following in her journal:
“Soon after her death her sister Lavinia came to me, as usual in late evening, actually trembling with excitement. She told me she had discovered a veritable treasure – quantities of Emily’s poems which she had had no instructions to destroy. She had already burned without examination hundreds of manuscripts, and letters to Emily, many of them from nationally known persons, thus, she believed, carrying out her sister’s partly expressed wishes, but without intelligent discrimination. Later she bitterly regretted such inordinate haste. But these poems, she told me, must be printed at once.”
This journal entry comes from Todd’s article in the March 1930 “Harper’s Monthly Magazine,” “Emily Dickinson’s Literary Debut.”
By the way (and this is a bit odd), in exploring leads to that article, I found this article — a totally unrelated piece by Andy Borowitz about “Emily Dickinson: Jerk of Amherst.”
Hmm…I usually find Borowitz funny. This column, while waggish, isn’t one of his best. To access the article, click the pic at the right, or click HERE. |