doctrine and discovering a personal spirituality through her poetry.

With her formal education at an end, Emily began to write poetry. In 1855, her father was able to buy The Homestead where Emily had been born, and where she was to die. Gradually she retreated into solitude and took to wearing the characteristic white dresses that added to her reputation in Amherst of being a "strange lady". Emily's poetry, and especially her letters, show signs of wide reading: the poetry deals with universal questions regarding death and issues of immortality. One of the most famous poems begins:

Because I could not stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me

The Carriage held but just Ourselves

And Immortality

At the time she was writing, from 1850, Emily Dickinson's poetry was innovative in form, using unusual capitalization of nouns, dashes and odd meter; she put no titles to her works and metaphors are often startling in their originality. She has had considerable influence on modern verse as well as lyrical forms. During her life, only 6 poems were published but the 1700 that were published after her death established her place in 19th century literature.

There is much speculation surrounding Emily's emotional life and possible romances but neither she nor her sister, Lavinia, ever married. In her final years Emily Dickenson became increasingly eccentric, never showing herself to visitors, remaining in her room where she sewed sheets of her poems into booklets or fascicles. It seems likely that she suffered from some sort of anxiety disorder or even agoraphobia. In 1864 and again in 1865, Emily visited Boston because of eye problems, after which she never left The Homestead in Amherst. She died there of Bright's disease at the age of 55 years on May 15, 1886 leaving us an invaluable legacy of pleasure.

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