I Had Been Hungry All the Years

(1830-1886) was an American poet. Although a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. Many deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends. It was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Dickinson's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent. A complete collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when the book The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite some unfavourable reviews and some scepticism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as to Dickinson's literary prowess, she is now almost universally considered to be one of the most important American poets.