Hope is the Thing with Feathers

(December 10, 1830-May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Born in Massachusetts she lived a mostly reclusive life. She was a prolific private poet but fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. Many of her poems 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 her younger sister discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of her work became apparent. Her first collection of poetry, which was heavily edited, was published in 1890. A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 with the publication of The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Despite unfavourable reviews during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century about Dickinson's literary prowess, Dickinson is now almost universally considered to be one of the most important American poets.