1. IMAGINING EMILY DICKINSON’S
DESKS, 1870-1886

2. According to the writer‘s niece,
Martha Dickinson Bianchi, .
Dickinson‘s ―only writing desk [was]...
a table, 18-inches square, with a
drawer deep enough to take in her ink
bottle, paper and pen…[and] placed in
the corner by the window facing
west."
View of Emily Dickinson‘s room,
Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, Mass.

3. Although the cherry and pine writing desk to which Bianchi refers is a unique
piece currently housed in the Dickinson Room at the Houghton
Library, reproductions of the desk—in wood and in pixels—abound. A simple
Google search for images of Dickinson‘s desk on the World Wide Web yields
numerous shots of it—or of its doppelgängers—at varying distances and camera
angles. Often, it is bathed in lamplight or sunlight, with a single fascicle on an
otherwise pristine and vacant surface…

4. This image of Dickinson‘s desk is so familiar to her readers, so imprinted on
our imaginations, that we think of it not as an image at all, but as a memory,
justly ours.
The desk, however, is a supreme fiction.
The instant we begin to picture it, we realize it could not have been
Dickinson‘s writing desk—at least not her only desk. How could the delicate
table have withstood the weight of her books? How could it have tolerated
the pressure of her hand in the ―white heat‖ of writing every day across the
days of more than thirty years? And how could it have accommodated the
thousands of leaves of blank paper Dickinson turned into manuscripts?

5. Just past the image of the pristine writing
desk another, more unruly image is
forming. I see the desk laden with
volumes, open and closed—the family
Bible; the novels of the Brontës, George
Eliot, Charles Dickens; Ruskin‘s Modern
Painters…
Dickinson‘s copy of The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New
Testaments: translated out of the original tongues. Philadelphia: J. P. Several titles Dickinson was known to have had in
Lippincott & Co., MDCCCXLIII. Houghton Library. her personal library.

6. I s e e i t c o ve r e d w i t h r o w s o f b o t a n i c a l s p e c i m e n s : Ja s m i n u s, C a l e n d u l a
O f f i c i n a l i s, D i g i t a l i s, S a l v i a … .
Random facsimile pages from Emily Dickinson‘s herbarium, c. 1839-1846. Houghton Library,
Harvard University, MS Am. 1118.11.

7. And beyond it, I see the room that gives the desk space, filling with papers…
MSS drawn at random from the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections: A 889, A 193-94, A 867a,
A 750, A 332, A 842.

8. There are stacks of them on the table,
on the floor, on the bed…
She moves them.
Others living in the household and
coming from outside of it move
them.
The wind moves them.
Time moves them.
My imagination moves them until
there is a whirling and whirring of
marks in the air… Jen Bervin, The Composite Marks of Fascicle 28. Cotton and silk thread on
cotton batting. 6‘ x 8‘.

9. I see, of course, only what I see in the mind‘s eye.
For like Bianchi, like everyone, I have arrived too late: I do not catch Dickinson in the
act of writing.
I do not see how she arranges and stab-binds the gatherings of poems we call
fascicles, or how she archives them, whether with other bound gatherings only, or
intermixed with loose sheets and fragments.
I do not see how, or even if, she distinguishes among poems, prose, and passages of
indeterminate genre…
I do not see her search for a poem written years earlier to revise or only to re-read it.

10. There is so much more I ―cannot see to see -‖ (JP 371; FP 340)
The cupola Edward Dickinson added atop the Homestead. Courtesy of
the Dickinson Museum. Photographer: Frank Ward.

11. Just as I do not see the room as it appeared while Dickinson lived within it, I
do not see it in the days and months following her death when her papers
were discovered, sorted, destroyed, and disseminated.
I do not see the clearing away of her effects, nor do I know if this process
was carried out systematically or at chance‘s hands.
I do not know if those entrusted to the task worked patiently or were
overwhelmed by what they found.

12. Was there, as the story And if there was only
goes, only a single locked one box, containing the
box containing thousands poems, where were the
of poem manuscripts? letter drafts and
Where has this fragments? Where were
(Pandora‘s) box and its the manuscripts
key gone? featured here
discovered?
Joseph Cornell, ―Toward the Blue Peninsula‖ (For Emily Dickinson, c. 1953)

13. In A Revelation, Bingham repeats Mabel Loomis Todd‘s claim that the ―Lord letters‖
were given to her mother by Austin Dickinson, though how they came to be in his
possession was not recorded: ―One packet brought by Mr. Dickinson was different
from all the others. In a used brown envelope, addressed in an unknown hand to ‗Miss
E. C. Dickinson, Amherst, Mass.,‘ the canceled stamps an issue of the early 1880s, it is
labeled in my mother‘s writing, ‗Rough drafts of Emily's letters.‘ She told me that when
Mr. Dickinson gave her this envelope he indicated that it was something very special
and personal. A glance was enough to show her that the drafts it contained were
indeed different. Obviously love letters, my mother did not ask Mr. Dickinson how
they came to be in his possession, wondering though she did how they could have
escaped destruction.‖

14. A 761: The envelope allegedly containing the ―Lord Letters.‖ Amherst College Library,
Archives & Special Collections.

15. Was one box actually many boxes?
After all the manuscripts have been
carried away from Dickinson‘s
room, questions whirl in their place
and do not settle.
I see her desk, and I do not see it.
Emily Dickinson‘s desk. Dickinson Room, Houghton Library,
Harvard University.

16. Or rather, what I see is always a facsimile.
The desk is a facsimile.
And the manuscripts upon it, though they are written in Dickinson‘s hand, are
facsimiles, too. Their transformation from original documents to altered
artifacts began as soon as Dickinson died and left them behind. Since then, they
have become ever and ever more ―unbound from the aura of the original[s].‖
We have never seen them except as uncanny doubles, estranged from their first
orders and contexts. The aura that arises from them is nothing more, and
nothing less, than our longing to have been present in the scene of her
writing, in a moment always foreclosed to us.

17. FORECLOSE
Forms: ME–15 forclose, 15 Sc. foirclois, 15– foreclose.
Etymology: < forclos-, stem of forclore , < for- , for- prefix 3 + clore to close v. Some of the senses may have originated from
or have been influenced by the identification of the prefix with for- prefix 1 (compare Old English forclýsan to close, stop up),
or with for- prefix 2, fore- prefix (compare preclude)....
1.
trans. To bar, exclude, shut out completely.
†b. To bar or stop up (one's) passage. Obs.
†2. To close fast, close or stop up, block up (an opening, way, etc.) Obs.
a. To preclude, hinder, or prohibit (a person) from (an action) or to do something; to hinder the action, working, or
activity of.
b. To debar from the enjoyment of.
c. To preclude or prevent (an action or event).
5. To close beforehand; to answer or settle by anticipation.
6. To establish an exclusive claim to.
J. R. Lowell Poet. Wks. (1879) 470 Are we..Foreclosed of Beauty by our modern date?

18. Perhaps our imagination of the desk cleared of its contents is
the right one after all.
There is nothing there. And there is everything to imagine.
On a recent trip I took to Amherst College, an archivist who has
worked in close proximity to Dickinson‘s manuscripts for many
years, told me the story of another desk also believed to have
been the poet‘s but which has so far been absent from re-
imaginations of the scene of her writing. The desk, which she
displayed, is in fact a crude writing board, 16 x 19‖, painted
white on one side, curved, with rollers that appear to fit over the
knees.
According to the story, the lap-desk was found, among other
family effects, in the attic of the Dickinson Homestead by the
Parke family, who had bought the property from Martha Bianchi
in the 1916 and occupied it until 1965. Although associated with
Emily Dickinson, the desk did not appeal to Mrs. Parke, and she
donated it to the Grace Church‘s Saint Nicholas Bazaar around
1956. There it was purchased by Margaret Roberta Grahame,
mother of Roberta M. Grahame, a former tour guide at the
Homestead, and Great Aunt to the archivist who is the present
source for this information.

19. Emily Dickinson‘s (?) writing board, 16 x 19‖, painted white on one side, curved, with rollers that
appear to fit over the knees. The lap-desk is housed in the Amherst College Library, Archives & Special Collections.

20. The stark simplicity of the object—its obvious uses for writing late at night or
when ill in bed—along with the uncertainty of its provenance appeal to me.
Like the sudden texts of Dickinson‘s late drafts and fragments, the board
seems related to a practice of writing in the moment. Splashed with white
paint, it may have offered a bright surface for writing in the dark. Under the
painted surface, traces of lost texts may still be recovered…
At once tabla rasa and mystic writing pad, the mysterious lap-desk embodies
the greater mystery of writing‘s ―reportlessness,‖ a condition Dickinson
associated with joy.

21. Emily Dickinson‘s writing board? MS A 251, c. 1876,
Amherst College Archives & Special Collections ―In many and reportless|
places‖

22. In many and reportless places
Nature Deity Joy –
Dissolves abates Exhales
Sumptuous Destitution
Without Name
We inhaled it – waylaid it
Blissful thereafter roam
Scattered words and phrases from Dickinson‘s late draft, ―In many and
reportless | places‖ (A 251), superimposed on the image of the writing
board.

23. NOTES
SLIDE 1: The images on the opening slide include a reproduction of Dickinson‘s writing desk (left)
now housed at the Dickinson Museum; a facsimile of a late fragment (A 821) beginning ―Clogged only
with Music‖ (right); a lap-desk (center) that may have been Emily Dickinson‘s and is now in the Amherst
College Library Archives & Special Collections; a facsimile (MS Am. 1118.5 [B 44]) of Dickinson‘s
signature (on lap-desk, left); a facsimile page (MS Am. 1118.11) from Dickinson‘s herbarium, c. 1839-
1846 (on lap-desk, right); and a facsimile of a draft of a letter (A 757) from Dickinson to Otis Lord
beginning ―Tuesday is a deeply depressed day‖ (lap-desk, partially covered).
MSS A 821, A 757, and the image of the lap-desk are reproduced with permission of the Amherst
College Library, Archives & Special Collections.
The image of the reproduction of Dickinson‘s desk is reproduced with permission of the Dickinson
Museum.
MS Am 1118.5 (B 44) and MS Am. 1118.11 are reproduced with permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University & the Harvard University Press. A digital scan of Dickinson‘s herbarium is
available on the Houghton Library‘s webpage: see
http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/modern/dickinson.cfm#web

24. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 2:
Left: The passage from Martha Dickinson Bianchi‘s Face to Face: Unpublished Letters with Notes and
Reminiscences by Her Niece (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932) is quoted on the Amherst
College Library‘s website:
https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/officespace/emilydickinson.
Right: One of the many reproductions of Dickinson‘s writing table. The original desk is made from
cherry and pine (secondary wood), with brass finishings; it was made by an unknown carpenter, c.
1830. This reproduction currently stands in the Dickinson Homestead. It is reproduced here with
permission of the Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst, MA.
Slide 3:
Andy Warhol meets Emily Dickinson: repeated images of the reproduction copy of Emily
Dickinson‘s writing desk currently housed in the Dickinson Museum.

25. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 5:
Left: A digital scan of Emily Dickinson‘s bible: The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New
Testaments: translated out of the original tongues. Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott &
Co., MDCCCXLIII. The bible was presented to Dickinson by her father, Edward Dickinson, in
1844. The original volume is currently housed at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The
image, which appears on a blog associated with the Houghton‘s website
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/houghtonmodern/2011/06/13/emily-dickinsons-not-so-sacred-
book/, is reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Right (on writing desk): Images (superimposed) of random 19th-century books piled on Dickinson‘s
desk.
Right (on floor): An image (superimposed) of several titles Dickinson was known to have had in her
personal library. The image appears on the Emily Dickinson Museum
website, http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/reading, and is reproduced with the Museum‘s
permission.

26. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 6:
Random facsimile pages from Emily Dickinson‘s herbarium, c. 1839-1846 (MS Am. 1118.11).
Reproduced by permission of the Houghton College Library, Harvard University. For a complete
digital surrogate of the herbarium, see
http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/modern/dickinson.cfm#web, the portal to
many digital images from the Houghton‘s extensive Emily Dickinson Collection.
Slide 7:
The digital facsimiles reproduced here are drawn from the Amherst College Library, Archives &
Special Collections, and reproduced with the Library‘s permission: top center: a recipe, in Dickinson‘s
hand, for doughnuts (A 889); right (inner): A Western Union Telegraph blank inscribed with poem-
drafts beginning ―Glass was the Street‖ and ―It came his turn‖ (A 193 / A194); right (outer): a
fragment of writing from a draft beginning, ―a similar Mirage of thought‖ (A 867a); bottom (center:) a
fragment of a fair-copy draft beginning, ―The withdrawal of the Fuel of Rapture‖ (A 750); left (inner),
a postal wrapper inscribed with a rough-copy draft beginning, ―Pompless no Life ‖ (A 332); and left
(outer): a fragment of a rough-copy draft beginning, ―As there are Apartments‖ (A 842).

27. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 8:
Right: The image is from Jen Bervin‘s The Composite Marks of Fascicle 28. Cotton and silk thread on
cotton batting, 6 ft h x 8 ft w. Reproduced by permission of the artist.
Slide 10:
Center: The cupola Edward Dickinson added atop the Homestead. Courtesy of the Dickinson
Museum. Photographer: Frank Ward.
Slide 12:
Center: Joseph Cornell‘s ―Toward the Blue Peninsula‖ (For Emily Dickinson, c. 1953). The image
appears in numerous places on the web. This digital image was copied from the following source:
http://www.mdmfineart.co.uk/?p=1187, December 2012.

28. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 13:
The quoted passage is from Millicent Todd Bingham, Emily Dickinson: A Revelation (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1954), page 1.
Slide 14:
A 761: This envelope is housed in the Amherst College Library, Archives & Special Collections, and
is reproduced with the Library‘s permission. Mabel Loomis Todd labeled the envelope ―Rough
drafts of Emily‘s letters.‖ Additional faint notes in pencil appear to read: ―[Mother?] [Millicent?] says
she loved various [men?].‖ The words in brackets are largely illegible. If the initial word is indeed
―Mother,‖ it would appear to be Millicent Todd Bingham‘s note about information she received
about the documents from Mabel Loomis Todd; if it is ―Millicent,‖ it is almost certainly Jay Leyda's
note.

29. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 15:
Right: An image of the original writing table used by Emily Dickinson. Cherry, pine (secondary
wood), brass; maker unknown, ca. 1830. The desk is currently housed in the Dickinson Room of the
Houghton Library, Harvard University. This image is reproduced on the Houghton Library‘s website:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/modern/dickinson.cfm
Slide 16:
The quoted passage is from Meg Roland, ―Facsimile Editions: Gesture and Projection,‖ Textual
Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation 6.2 (2011): 49.
Slide 17:
The definition of ―foreclose‖ is from the online Oxford English Dictionary.

30. NOTES, CONTINUED
Slide 19:
Center: A digital surrogate of a writing board, 16 x 19‖, painted white on one side, curved, with
rollers that appear to fit over the knees. According to Margaret Dakin, Amherst College
Library, Archives & Special Collections, the board was found, among other family effects, in the attic
of the Dickinson Homestead, by the Parke family, who bought the property from Martha Bianchi.
Mrs. Parke donated the board to the Grace Church‘s Saint Nicholas Bazaar in the 1950s (possibly in
1956), where it was purchased by Margaret Roberta Grahame, mother of Roberta M. Grahame, a
former tour guide at the Homestead. Although questions regarding provenance cannot be answered
definitively, Mrs. Parke told Margaret Grahame that is was Emily Dickinson‘s writing board. The
writing on the back of the board, Dakin notes, is Roberta‘s: she liked, writes Dakin, ―to document
things in a hands-on sort of way‖ (private email correspondence, November 26, 2012).
Slide 22:
Superimposed on the writing board: Scattered words and phrases from Dickinson‘s late draft, ―In many
and reportless | places‖ (A 251).

31. FIN