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Who was Otis Phillips Lord in Emily Dickinson’s life?
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Emily Dickinson
Poet Emily Dickinson is one of American poetry's most singular and influential voices.
Otis Phillips Lord was an elderly judge on the Massachusetts supreme court who became a significant figure in the later life of Emily Dickinson.12
Beginning when the poet was about 50 years old, she and Lord conducted a passionate romance. The letters Dickinson wrote to him during this time reveal a playful side of her personality, as she alternated between teasing and confiding in him. When Lord made an erotic advance or proposed marriage, Dickinson declined, famously writing to him: "Dont you know you are happiest while I withhold and not confer – dont you know that ‘No’ is the wildest word we consign to Language?" Lord died in 1884, two years before Dickinson.12