The Diary of Emily Dickinson Author:Jamie Fuller This is a fictional diary of the enigmatic Emily Dickinson. Supposedly written from 1867 to 1868 when the poet was 37, the diary has been "found" in 1915 in a wall of the Dickinson family home during renovations. Dickinson lived quietly with her family in Amherst, wrote her poetry unobtrusively, died unmarried and became fa... more »mous only later. Fuller takes no gothic or adventurous liberties here, conjures up no ghosts, perversions, traumas, or previously unknown disasters. Instead, this Emily Dickinson is an obedient but observant daughter, skeptical and intelligent, dedicated to the cultivation of her poetic gift and not so much repressed, as unlucky in her romantic desires. For example, her love for the older Judge Otis Phillips Lord is shown to remain unfulfilled only because cruel time snatches the opportunity away. (Although room for interpretation is allowed.) What emerges is a real-life Emily, captivating not for the operatic whisperings of dark secrets, but for the quiet authenticity of voice, place, and time Fuller conjures up. Her hand at Dickinsonian verse is considerable--twenty-five "new" poems are included . There are occasional stumblings in entries that are too expository to be realistic, but overall the book is lovely in conception, language, character and detail--though extraordinarily motionless and still.« less