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Rating: 
Summary: an inspired look at a mysterious poet
Review: Beginning with Habegger's inspired choice of the title, from one of Dickinson's poems, this book is a comprehensive, respectful look at an enigmatic woman. Habegger fleshes out well the cast of characters in her self-limited sphere, so that we feel we know well her family members and friends of that Victorian era so different from our own. The poet herself remains somewhat elusive, but I thank Habegger for refusing to reduce her to psychological cliches. His book is refreshingly free of five-cent analyses, however tempting Dickinson's character might be for such dismissive summaries.
There is no doubt that Dickinson ranks as one of the greatest American poets, due to her concise, spare, whimsical, and cerebral approach. Personally, I have never warmed to her poetry as I sense something lacking. She elevates feeling above all, as do all the poets of the romantic period. Unlike her Puritan ancestors, for whom the greatest love was the love of God, her energies and attachments all flow both from, and toward, her own feelings. Like a moonstruck adolescent, she prefers her dreams of love to the actual presence of the loved one. From her decision to withdraw from the necessary order and balance of the outside world, comes this outpouring of intense feeling expressed in the large body of her work. As a Lay Carmelite whose spiritual life has also been informed by Puritan ancestors, I praise the beauty of Dickinson's poems, but I cannot deny what seems to me their essential, self-referring shallowness. I know many will disagree with me and I do not disallow her position in the American canon.
Rating: 
Summary: academically valid without being boring
Review: I began this book with trepidation, for I find myself slightly suspicious of literary biographies finding them to be either too sensationalized or reductive or too academic to be interesting to the average reader. This is a well-researched volume that does not read like a doctoral thesis. But Alfred Habegger manages to discover a delightful balance between scholarly research and public readability. I adore Dickinson and was impressed with the manner in which Habegger handled his subject. He presents her with the complexity and intellectual approach toward she deserves. Emily Dickinson appears as neither the bizarre recluse nor a misunderstood sexual being of some of her previous biographies. If, as some readers have found, the poet appears a bit unresolved and incomplete, it is only because Mr. Habegger wisely chose NOT to sensationalize his book with unsubstantiated presumptions as to her personal life. I enjoyed the author's scholarly, non-sensationalist approach to Ms. Dickinson and found that it did not prevent me from "knowing her" as a person or subject. One of Alfred Hebeggar's greatest strengths is his realization that no artist exists in a vacuum. He presents to his readers the complex outer world that inspired the poets rich inner world allowing us to draw many of our own conclusions. Meticulously researched and gently paced, the book is a journey not merely a chronicle of a single life. Instead, it is an insightful look at the entire Dickinsonian world of family, academics, and petty town politics. Habegger introduces the reader to the poet's entire extended family and the emotional movement within it. He allows the reader to truly see the social and political environment in which the poet lived. And that is fascinating in its own right. Overall, I enjoyed the book very much and appreciate Alfred Hebeggar's unique ability to strike a balance scholarship and authorship. He is never condescending, yet he explains thoroughly. He treats the reader as an intelligent person with a mind eager for historical details and biographical accuracy and he treats his subject with respect and intellectual dignity. His book is academically valid without sacrificing the art of solid writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Exhausting and tedious
Review: I had read a lot of Emily Dickinson's poetry and some brief article biographies of her life before reading this book. So I was looking forward to a book-length biography. I was disappointed. I feel the book could have been edited down to one third or one fourth of it's tedious length. Who really cares about a relative's business dealings? I skipped over those boring pages, trying to find facts on ED's life. I didn't find much.
I feel I can know more about Emily through simply reading her poetry, some of which I still find hard to understand. I admire her for not seeking fame or money through her gift of writing. She was a true artist with words.
Go to this site to read her poetry online: http://www.bartleby.com/113/.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing ... so far
Review: I've read about one-third of this biography, and I'm still waiting for the author to show me how he proposes to interpret the facts of ED's life. I have to say that just before I began Habegger's life of ED, I finished Louise DeSalvo's, 'Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work,' a thrilling book that derives much of its clarity and power from the author's use of the insights of psychologist Alice Miller in describing the 'family system' of the Stephen household and in telling the story of the women in that household. It all makes sense. It's clear. Powerful stuff, indeed. I'm still missing the same sort of explanatory power in Habegger's biography of ED, and frankly, it seems to me that if anyone's life merits interpretation within the context of partriarchy and the partriarchial household, it's ED's. Since I haven't done the research myself, however, I can't say that the evidence allows the application of such an interpretive framework, but if not I still need something to help me understand the significance of the wealth of information that Habegger presents. I have read Habegger's biography of Henry James, Sr., which I liked very much precisely because his 'phasing' of HJ's life is so clear. I just wish that in the present case, he had employed some model of family and household that helps me understand the 600 pages of narrative that he presents. In any case, it's well written and an engrossing read. Perhaps all will be revealed in the 350 pages I have yet to read.
Rating:
Summary: Read Sewall instead
Review: In my opinion this is the best biography of Emily Dickinson. Habbeger integrates the most recent scholarship with independent judgment to paint a sophisticated and sympathetic picture of our elusive genius. Unusual in a biography is his clear story line that allows us to watch Dickinson's gradually developing sense of herself and her vocation against a background of deep prejudice against most kinds of accomplishment for women. "[We] should keep in mind that she was a noncitizen by force of custom and law, that many doors were closed to her, and that she left behind more good hard work than any of us." (page 504) The general reader and we amateur Dickinson freaks will find a treasure house of information, insight, and enhanced appreciation of our off-center idol.
Rating:
Summary: The Soul Selects Her Own Society--
Review: Miss Dickinson does not yield herself easily to the microscope of biography, as almost every would-be biographer has found. Mr. Habegger contributes a scholarly missive that requires a good pre-knowledge of Emily Dickinson and her poetry to understand and appreciate the book. The author has steered a firm middle course and refused any idle speculation on ED's sexuality, lovers, and sanity. However, he is not afraid to make a choice or a decision or two. He thinks Miss Dickinson had two great loves, but is not willing to confirm whether these existed solely in her imagination or were, in fact, reciprocated. There are lengthy sections on ED's father and grandfather, which I found well researched and shrewdly presented. I was disappointed in his choice of the poetry analyzed. Some was obscure even to the Dickinson devotee, and not all was first rate. Though the book is hefty, literally and figuratively, I felt ED was but a shadow throughout. There are many well-documented instances of Miss Dickinson's sharp sense of humor, but none appeared in "My Wars Are Laid Away in Books." There is no sense of the entire family's eccentricity. Brother Austin, when a pillar of the town of Amherst, left his wife to take up with his mistress who lived across town. Think what a hullabaloo this must have caused in Victorian-era New England! Sister Lavinia became more and more peculiar as her age advanced. So Emily had a good background for some unconventional behavior. I enjoyed the Sewell biography more, though it was written in 1972 without the benefit of Mr. Habegger's advanced scholarship. I believe Emily Dickinson told us all she wanted us to know in her poems. And thus far, she has succeeded. The soul selects her own society-
Then shuts the door-
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more. Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate-
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat. I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one- Then close the valves of her attention--
Like stone.
Rating: 
Summary: Read this to know something, but be warned not much is new
Review: While Habegger does provide some original insight into Edward Dickinson, the majority of this book does not present new evidence or new interpretation. The documentation of sources is done terribly (it barely exists), which is not excusable in someone who is a scholar. I realize this book is not written for a scholarly audience, but with the recent problems Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin have had, Habegger should have been much more careful. For the reader new to ED and wanting to know about her, this book will provide all the usual information. What is troubling is that there is a fair amount of speculative commentary provided that isn't well backed up, especially when it comes to ED's relationships with her sister-in-law and her parents. Quite a few assertions are stated as fact but don't have the evidence to back them up. This is the problem with a lot of Dickinson biographies--biographers (most of them scholars) don't seem to feel that it's necessary to explain that a lot of what they say is speculation and not fact; most casual readers won't know this and take everything that's said as not only fact, but fact provided by someone who really knows what they're talking about. Habegger knows more than many, but his material is not presented in a way that is acceptable scholarship because it's mostly his opinion with some quotations taken out of context. There are also several factual errors, but I'm told these are being corrected for the paperback edition which is due out next month.
Rating:
Summary: Read this to know something, but be warned not much is new
Review: While Habegger does provide some original insight into Edward Dickinson, the majority of this book does not present new evidence or new interpretation. The documentation of sources is done terribly (it barely exists), which is not excusable in someone who is a scholar. I realize this book is not written for a scholarly audience, but with the recent problems Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin have had, Habegger should have been much more careful. For the reader new to ED and wanting to know about her, this book will provide all the usual information. What is troubling is that there is a fair amount of speculative commentary provided that isn't well backed up, especially when it comes to ED's relationships with her sister-in-law and her parents. Quite a few assertions are stated as fact but don't have the evidence to back them up. This is the problem with a lot of Dickinson biographies--biographers (most of them scholars) don't seem to feel that it's necessary to explain that a lot of what they say is speculation and not fact; most casual readers won't know this and take everything that's said as not only fact, but fact provided by someone who really knows what they're talking about. Habegger knows more than many, but his material is not presented in a way that is acceptable scholarship because it's mostly his opinion with some quotations taken out of context. There are also several factual errors, but I'm told these are being corrected for the paperback edition which is due out next month.
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