The daughter of a lawyer from Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was initially a vivacious, outgoing person, but she progressively withdrew into a reclusive existence. Emily was a truly undiscovered genius during her lifetime and astonishingly only seven out of her total of 1,775 poems were published prior to her death. She had an immense breadth of vision and a passionate intensity and awe for life, love, nature, time and eternity. Originally branded an eccentric, Emily Dickinson is now recognized as a major poet of great depth, startling originality and courage -for as she wrote: 'Assent and you are sane; / Demur, you're straightaway dangerous / And handled with a chain'.