Emily Dickinson’s Neglected Plant Specimens and New Insights into Her Herbarium-Making

Although Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium has become a celebrated object for its beauty and singularly impressive diversity, there are other collections of plants attributable to the poet. This essay will focus on a neglected set of specimens, the Quire, furnishing a new suite of species associated with Dickinson while also providing a rare glimpse into her herbarium-making process. Combining the evidence of this process with previously overlooked clues from the Herbarium itself, I propose an emerging possibility that allows for the Herbarium’s meticulous construction—or composition—to have occurred during a later period in Dickinson’s life than traditionally assumed. This plasticity of timeframe may foster a new era of scholarship with the potential for fresh insights into Dickinson’s botanical and literary oeuvres.