Poems by Emily Dickinson

Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas W.S. Higginson were instrumental in editing and publishing the first posthumous collections of Emily Dickinson's poetry. After Dickinson's death in 1886, hundreds of her poems were discovered. Todd, a friend of the Dickinson family, undertook the meticulous task of preparing them for publication. She was later joined by Higginson, who, like Todd, had corresponded with Dickinson and recognized the unique, almost unpublishable, originality of her work.

Together, they edited and "corrected" several poems. The first volume, Poems by Emily Dickinson, was released in 1890, followed by a second volume in 1891. Todd subsequently published a third volume in 1896 and two collections of Dickinson's letters in 1894. These efforts brought Dickinson's singular brilliance and enigmatic verse to a wider audience, though their editorial choices, such as inventing titles and regularizing grammar, have been a subject of scholarly discussion.123