While continuing to write, Dickinson also cared for her mother after she took ill in the 1850s.
Hailing from an affluent and established family in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson had limited formal education and preferred isolation to social interaction. She never married, unusual for a woman from a prominent family at that time. While she preferred seclusion, she corresponded diligently with many, including sister-in-law Susan Gilbert. While continuing to write, Dickinson also cared for her mother after she took ill in the 1850s. Dickinson’s sister, Lavinia, discovered her sister’s many unpublished poems after the latter’s death. Popular ones include “Because I could not stop for Death” and “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” You can read Emily Dickinson’s work in the book The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, available from publisher Penguin Random House.