Emily Dickinson's Correspondences
Correspondence with Susan Dickinson

H 360

JP 1597

FP 1631

OMC 190

mid-1870s

pencil, one sheet folded to make two leaves and folded into thirds, as if to tuck into an envelope

stationary

watermark/embossment: T, Weston's Linen 1876

20.5 x 13 cm.


FF 268. On the second leaf, beside the three ll. "With Love alone / had bent, / It's fervor the," "were" is written sideways--is it a variant? The top two-thirds portion of the first leaf (i.e., above the bottom fold) is cut away. "X" on verso. Johnson's note speculates that the missing part was removed by Susan, and thus possibly identifies one of the mutilations by Susan:

It was sent to Sue and could have been occasioned by the death of Judge Otis P. Lord on 13 March. It is written on two sheets; the upper part of the first has been torn away, as if the recipient had separated what preceded, presumably a brief message.
There is no clear evidence to suggest that this was written upon the death of Lord. It could have been written upon the death of Susan's brother or it could have been written on the death of Samuel Bowles in 1878. Franklin assigns dates of the early 1870s to handwriting of this style (see Set 11, e.g.).


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Image reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Not to be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.
Transcription and commentary copyright 1996 by Martha Nell Smith, all rights reserved
Last updated on May 21, 2001
Maintained by Tanya Clement <tclement@umd.edu>