Emily Dickinson's Posthumous Discovery by Sister Lavinia
Poet involved
What happened
After Emily Dickinson's death on May 15, 1886, her sister Lavinia discovered a cache of nearly 1,800 poems hidden in the Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. The poems were sewn into forty fascicles and stored in a bureau drawer, revealing the extraordinary scope of Dickinson's secret literary labor.
Literary impact
Lavinia's discovery transformed American literary history, bringing to light one of the most original poetic voices of the nineteenth century. The subsequent publication of Dickinson's work, though heavily edited, established her as a major poet and began the process of canonization that would eventually place her alongside Walt Whitman as a foundational figure in American poetry.
Source: Wikipedia
