<P> Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts . Although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation . After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst . Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom . Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence . Dickinson was a recluse for the later years of her life . </P> <P> While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime . The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time . Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation . Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends . </P> <P> Although Dickinson's acquaintances were most likely aware of her writing, it was not until after her death in 1886--when Lavinia, Dickinson's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems--that the breadth of her work became apparent to the public . Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, though both heavily edited the content . A complete, and mostly unaltered, collection of her poetry became available for the first time when scholar Thomas H. Johnson published The Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955 . </P> <P> Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born at the family's homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830, into a prominent, but not wealthy, family . Her father, Edward Dickinson was a lawyer in Amherst and a trustee of Amherst College . Two hundred years earlier, her patrilineal ancestors had arrived in the New World--in the Puritan Great Migration--where they prospered . Emily Dickinson's paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, was one of the founders of Amherst College . In 1813, he built the Homestead, a large mansion on the town's Main Street, that became the focus of Dickinson family life for the better part of a century . Samuel Dickinson's eldest son, Edward, was treasurer of Amherst College for nearly forty years, served numerous terms as a State Legislator, and represented the Hampshire district in the United States Congress . On May 6, 1828, he married Emily Norcross from Monson . They had three children: </P>

When was emily dickinson's poetry first published