Emily Dickinson Archive
Heart! We will forget him!You and I — tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave —
I will forget the light!When you have done, pray tell me
That I may straight begin!
Haste! lest while you’re lagging
I remember him!
Emily Dickinson
Still No New Pynchon Photo, but Here’s Emily Dickinson – NYTimes.com
Still No New Pynchon Photo, but Here’s Emily Dickinson – NYTimes.com
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Amherst College Archives and Special Collections
A daguerreotype that Amherst College says depicts Emily Dickinson (near left) with a friend, Kate Scott Turner.In her own words, Emily Dickinson said she was “small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut burr; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.” (She also had a strange propensity for accepting rides from carriage drivers who are the physical embodiment of Death.) But what did that celebrated Massachusetts poet, who died in 1886 – long before the ubiquity of Instagram – actually look like? Until now only one authenticated portrait of Dickinson as an adult, a daguerreotype showing her sitting upright in a chair, was known to exist. But as The Guardian reports, a second image of Dickinson, with a smile on her face and a friend by her side, may have been confirmed.