Cynthia Griffin Wolff gives us a brilliant literary biography of Emily Dickinson that reveals the relationship between the poet's life and her poetry, between the life of her mind and the voice of her poems, through a rich, comprehensive understanding of Dickinson herself and a new, extraordinarily illuminating reading of her exquisite yet often daunting poems. All of the details of the poet's life are here, but Cynthia Griffin Wolff goes beyond the factual approach of previous biographers to give us a vivid context for Dickinson's life. This book is the closest we are likely to come to a definitive life of Emily Dickinson, and an unparalleled interpretive study of her poetry. - Jacket flap.