Open Me Carefully

The Sapphic Love Letters of Emily Dickinson

A long-buried love story comes to life.
Emily Dickinson as you’ve never read her before.

Emily Dickinson is one of our greatest poets. When her work was published posthumously in the 1890s, she almost instantly became a sensation. And yet, for one hundred years, her personal life was subject to censorship and misinterpretation, with little regard for her sister-in-law, neighbour and best friend: ‘dear Sue’.

Susan Huntington Dickinson was Emily’s first reader, her greatest critic and collaborator – and, as their correspondence shows, the true love of her life. In June 1852, Emily sent a letter to Susan with the tender instruction, open me carefully…

Immerse yourself in these sapphic letters spanning thirty-six years and witness a love that matures to become as steadfast as a heartbeat. Gone is Emily the lonely spinster, isolated in her room; here arrives a passionate, vibrant woman who had an intense spiritual, romantic and intellectual connection with another woman.

Edited and curated by two Dickinson scholars, Open Me Carefully includes twenty poems and a letter that had never been attributed to Susan before. It will make you laugh and it will break your heart – it is for anyone who has ever been in love.

'Iridescent, puzzling, explosive' The New York Times Book Review

Contributor: Ellen Louise Hart (Edited by), Martha Nell Smith (Edited by)

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