Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet

Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life

Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet

Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet

Emily Dickinson was a keen observer of the natural world, but less well known is the fact that she was also an avid gardener—sending fresh bouquets to friends, including pressed flowers in her letters, and studying botany at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. At her family home, she tended both a small glass conservatory and a flower garden.

In Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, award-winning author Marta McDowell explores Dickinson’s deep passion for plants and how it inspired and informed her writing. Tracing a year in the garden, the book reveals details few know about Dickinson and adds to our collective understanding of who she was as a person. By weaving together Dickinson’s poems, excerpts from letters, contemporary and historical photography, and botanical art, McDowell offers an enchanting new perspective on one of America’s most celebrated but enigmatic literary figures.

Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet

Emily Dickinson as a gardener doesn’t fit with the Dickinson mythology. But beyond the stuff of literary legend, Emily Dickinson was a gardener. She shared a love of plants with her parents and siblings. To friends, she sent bouquets, and to some of her numerous correspondents, pressed flowers. She collected wildflowers. She studied botany at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. She tended both a small glass conservatory attached to the front of the house and a long flower garden sloping down the spacious east side of the grounds.