List of illustrations; Notes on contributors; Acknowledgments and note on the text; List of abbreviations; Chronology; Introduction Eliza Richards; Part I. Local Environments: 1. Amherst Domhnall Mitchell; 2. Reading in the Dickinson libraries Eleanor Elson Heginbotham; 3. Education Angela Sorby; 4. New England Puritan heritage Jane Donahue Eberwein; 5. Nature's influence Margaret H. Freeman; Part II. Literary Contexts: Sources, Influences, Intertextual Engagements: 6. The Bible Emily Seelbinder; 7. Shakespeare Páraic Finnerty; 8. Renaissance and eighteenth-century literature David Cody; 9. British Romantic and Victorian influences Elizabeth Petrino; 10. Transatlantic women writers Páraic Finnerty; 11. Immediate US literary predecessors Cristanne Miller; 12. US literary contemporaries: Dickinson's moderns Mary Loeffelholz; 13. Periodical reading Joan Kirkby; Part III. Social, Cultural, Political, and Intellectual Contexts: 14. Religion James McIntosh; 15. Death and immortality Joan Kirkby; 16. Gendered poetics Shira Wolosky; 17. Democratic politics Paul Crumbley; 18. Economics Elizabeth Hewitt; 19. Law and legal discourse James Guthrie; 20. Slavery and the Civil War Faith Barrett; 21. Popular culture Sandra Runzo; 22. Visual arts: the Pentimento Alexander Nemerov; 23. Natural sciences Sabine Sielke; 24. Nineteenth-century language theory and the manuscript variants Melanie Hubbard; 25. 'Say some philosopher!' Jed Deppman; Part IV. Reception: 26. Editorial history I: beginnings to 1955 Martha Nell Smith; 27. Editorial history II: 1955 to the present Alexandra Socarides; 28. On materiality (and virtuality) Gabrielle Dean; 29. The letters archive Cindy MacKenzie; 30. Critical history I: 1890 to 1955 Theo Davis; 31. Critical history II: 1955 to the present Magdalena Zapedowska; 32. Dickinson's influence Thomas Gardner; 33. Translation and international reception Domhnall Mitchell; Further reading; Index.