Humanities Librarian
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5787-2609Room 216
Dickinson Reference (Tertiary)
The following Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) reveal literary criticism, mostly from books and book chapters. Cataloging librarians developed LCSH to describe book content. But tweaking the canned subject searches reveals even more secondary criticism published in journal articles. The key is to retain "criticism" or one of the other sub-divisions as a keyword (or search term). For example, the keywords Emily AND Dickinson AND criticism if restricted to the Subject field reveal over 600 peer-reviewed articles published in The Emily Dickinson Journal, Victorian Studies, American Literature, The New England Quarterly, and other journals.
Most useful LCSH:
Additional LCSH:
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Aesthetics
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Appreciation
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Contemporaries
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Friends and associates
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Influence
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Knowledge
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Language
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Political and social views
- Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 — Religion
Employ LCSH in WorldCat, a "union catalog" of tens of millions of book records, to retrieve additional titles held by other libraries relevant to your Dickinson research. Request items of interest via our interlibrary loan service.
What is a catalog?
A catalog is a "comprehensive list of the books, periodicals, maps, and other materials in a given collection, arranged in systematic order to facilitate retrieval (usually alphabetically by author, title, and/or subject). In most modern libraries, the [paper] card catalog has been converted to machine-readable bibliographic records and is available online. The purpose of a library catalog... is to offer the user a variety of approaches or access points to the information contained in the collection" (ODLIS).
Gitenstein Library's web scale discovery service—an extension of the online catalog—remains the best option for finding books and e-books held by our library. It now incorporates additional media (e.g., journal articles) from licensed databases and scholarly sources on the open web.
These reference works provide biographical essays, authors' publishing histories, and/or bibliographies—often annotated—of primary (e.g., author interviews) and secondary (i.e., criticism) sources.
Bibliography:
Emily Dickinson: An Annotated Bibliography: Writings, Scholarship, Criticism, and ana, 1850-1968 by Call Number: PS1541 .Z49 1970ISBN: 0253319471Publication Date: 1970-01-01Thought dated, use this work to identify Dickinson criticism published as early as 1850.- The Poems of Emily Dickinson: An Annotated Guide to Commentary Published in English, 1890-1977 by Call Number: PS1541.Z5 D8ISBN: 0816178305Publication Date: 1979-07-01Another dated bibliography useful for researchers focusing on the historical reception of Dickinson's poems.
Biography:
Book-length biographies:
Dickinson in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections by Call Number: PS1541.Z5 D494 2015ISBN: 9781609383916Publication Date: 2016-01-01
These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson by Call Number: PS1541.Z5 A56 2020ISBN: 9780393609301Publication Date: 2020-02-25
Dictionary of Literary Biography:
American Renaissance in New England (Fourth Series) by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9780787646608Publication Date: 2001-06-08Dickinson's biographical entry is written by Sarah Ann Wider (Colgate University). Also available in print, Reference Collection (1st floor), call # PS129 .D47 v.243.
Companions:
The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 0521001188Publication Date: 2002-09-05also available in print, General Collection, call # PS1541.Z5 C28 2002
A Companion to Emily Dickinson [Blackwell] by Call Number: PS1541.Z5 C65 2014ISBN: 9781118492161Publication Date: 2014-03-03
Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work by Call Number: PS1541.Z5 L376 2007ISBN: 0816054487Publication Date: 2006-11-01This reference work incorporates a 19-page introductory biography, A-Z list of the author's poems, chronology, and lengthy bibliography of Dickinson's primary works but also secondary sources with partial annotations.
Encyclopedias:
All Things Dickinson: An Encyclopedia of Emily Dickinson's World by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 1440803315Publication Date: 2014-01-27
An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia by Call Number: PS1541.Z49 E47 1998ISBN: 0313297819Publication Date: 1998-04-30The easy-to-digest entries in this encyclopedia run about a page in length and in many cases include lists of recommended books. Browse entries to choose and/or refine your research topic.
Handbook:
The Emily Dickinson Handbook by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9780585324081Publication Date: 1998-01-01
