1896 Rare Second Edition - Poems. Third Series, by Emily Dickinson

Author: Emily Dickinson. Edited by Mabel Loomis Todd.
Title: Poems — Third Series.
Publisher: Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1896. Second edition (as stated).
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5 x 5 inches.
Pages: viii + 200 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good publisher’s olive-green cloth, front cover and spine lettered in gilt with a lovely gilt floral motif to the lower board. (hinges fine, overall slightly stained, worn and scuffed - as shown, gilt to spine faded - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Top edge gilt. A charming and well-preserved example.
Content: Near fine content (bright, tight and clean, rare light toning - as shown). Neat early gift inscription on the front flyleaf dated August, 1897.

Estimate: (USD 900–1500)

The book: A lovely 1896 second edition of Poems — Third Series, the final volume issued from Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts under the early editorial direction of Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson. Published by Roberts Brothers of Boston, this series was instrumental in introducing Dickinson’s poetry — largely unknown during her lifetime — to the wider literary world of the late nineteenth century.

This volume includes many of Dickinson’s now-celebrated meditations on nature, love, faith, interior life, and mortality, arranged thematically across sections such as Life, Nature, Love, and Time and Eternity. The poems retain the compressed lyric power, elliptical phrasing, and haunting imagery that define Dickinson’s unmistakable voice.

Issued in the elegant gilt-decorated cloth binding characteristic of the earliest printings, this copy embodies both the quiet beauty and reflective spirit associated with Dickinson’s work — a desirable and collectible early edition.

The author: Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) is today regarded as one of the greatest and most original poets in American literature, though only a handful of her poems appeared in print during her lifetime. Writing largely in seclusion in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson produced nearly 1,800 poems, many preserved in hand-sewn fascicles discovered after her death.

Her poetry — unconventional in punctuation, form, and musical cadence — explores themes of love, nature, consciousness, grief, immortality, and the tension between inner and outer worlds. Early posthumous editions, such as this Third Series volume, played a decisive role in bringing her visionary and deeply intimate lyrical voice to a modern readership.