Her first volume of poems was published in 1890, four years after her death. Literary critic Helen Vendler neatly summarises Dickinson’s endless variety and invention. ‘She is epigrammatic ...

Dickinson’s poem echoes Darwin’s point ... In one letter, written in 1871, she muses on the way death and life coexist: “why the Thief ingredient accompanies all Sweetness, Darwin does ...

But the letters also show a side of Dickinson that might not be familiar to even her most dedicated readers. Many people know her poetry of death, pain and suffering, but the letters are more upbeat ...