White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 222 ratings · 70 reviews

The first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist.

Their friendship began in 1862. The Civil War was raging. Dickinson was thirty-one; Higginson, thirty-eight. A former pastor at the Free Church of Worcester, Massachusetts,...more The first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist.

Their friendship began in 1862. The Civil War was raging. Dickinson was thirty-one; Higginson, thirty-eight. A former pastor at the Free Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, he wrote often for the cultural magazine of the day, The Atlantic Monthly—on gymnastics, women’s rights, and slavery. His article “Letter to a Young Contributor” gave advice to readers who wanted to write for the magazine and offered tips on how to submit one’s work (“use black ink, good pens, white paper”).

Among the letters Higginson received in response was one scrawled in looping, difficult handwriting. Four poems were enclosed in a smaller envelope. He deciphered the scribble: “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?”

Higginson read the poems. The writing was unique, uncategorizable. It was clear to him that this was “a wholly new and original poetic genius,” and the memory of that moment stayed with him when he wrote about it thirty years later.

Emily Dickinson’s question inaugurated one of the least likely correspondences in American letters—between a man who ran guns to Kansas, backed John Brown, and would soon command the first Union regiment of black soldiers, and the eremitic, elusive poet who cannily told him she did not cross her “Father’s ground to any House or town.”

For the next quarter century, until her death in 1886, Dickinson sent Higginson dazzling poems, almost one hundred of them—many of them her best. Their metrical forms were unusual, their punctuation unpredictable, their images elliptical, innovative, unsentimental. Poetry torn up by the roots, Higginson later said, that “gives the sudden transitions.”

Dickinson was a genius of the faux-naïf variety, reclusive to be sure but more savvy than one might imagine, more self-conscious and sly, and certainly aware of her outsize talent. “Dare you see a Soul at the ‘White Heat’?” she wondered. She dared, and he did.

In this shimmering, revelatory work, Brenda Wineapple re-creates the extraordinary, delicate friendship that led to the publication of Dickinson’s poetry. And though she and Higginson met face-to-face only twice (he had never met anyone “who drained my nerve power so much,” he said), their friendship reveals much about Dickinson, throwing light onto both the darkened door of the poet’s imagination and a corner of the noisy century that she and Colonel Higginson shared.

White Heat is about poetry, politics, and love; it is, as well, a story of seclusion and engagement, isolation and activism—and the way they were related—in the roiling America of the nineteenth century.(less)

Hardcover, 432 pages

Published August 12th 2008 by Knopf

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Jun 14, 2011 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, local-history, wild-women, found-in-the-swapshop

Surprisingly good--on a number of counts: Dickinson's poetry, life, her intensity; Higginson's importance in history, his work as an abolitionist, leader of the first all-black (former slaves) regiment in the Civil War; his writings on and support of women's equal rights...

Wineapple is never condescending nor overly interpretive; she gives both Higginson and Dickinson their due, is respectful of these larger-than-life figures, and is as good at writing about the poems as she is about Higginson's...more

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May 11, 2012 Diann Blakely added it

WHITE HEAT isn't just a dual biography of poetry's Queen Recluse and her "Preceptor," the editor, essayist, ultra-abolitionist and women's rights advocate. It's also a brilliantly incisive microcosm of our culture as viewed through what Wineapple calls "a single window." Through placing Dickinson and Higginson in their appropriate context—abolition-fevered Massachusetts in the years immediately before, during and after the Civil War—WHITE HEAT takes a hard look at a central split in the American...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Emily Dickenson, the ghostly poetic genius, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson had an unusual friendship that spanned 25 plus years --- primarily through correspondence and primarily under the guise of Ms Dickenson rather coyly asking for guidance in her writing. We all know about Emily Dickenson, the New England spinster-recluse who produced some of the most exquisite, deep, and accessible poetry ever written. But Higginson? He was a prolific writer himself, though not of her caliber, an abolitioni...more

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Dec 07, 2008 Katie added it

The best Biography on Dickinson ever written. Her letters are all we will ever truly know of her, and in that magnificent loopy handwriting and her characteristic modesty most evident when she addresses Mr. Higgins: 'Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?' we learn of the graceful subtly that can't help but bleed into her poems. Dickinson was more savvy than her readers might imagine and entirely unsentimental. She asks, perhaps already aware of the answer, 'Does the poem breat...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

See this review on 1776books.net...
http://1776books.blogspot.com/2010/02...

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

This is all I remember about Emily Dickinson, reclusive poet extraordinaire. One of my English teachers in high school would start her class every single day by making us recite this poem. A little strange, but I...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Carl Rollyson rated it 5 of 5 stars

In 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a noted man of letters and radical activist for abolition and women’s rights, asking if he would look at her poems. He did and recognized immediately their strange power. As Wineapple points out in this brilliant study, Dickinson’s letter marked the blossoming of a complicated lifelong friendship. Although the two met face-to-face only twice, Higginson found Dickinson’s explosive poetry seductive. Drawing on 25 years’ worth of Dickins...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Chip rated it 4 of 5 stars

Brenda Wineapple takes on the history of the peculiar friendship between Dickinson and Higginsworth. She is well-equipped for this task, having written about mid-19th century America in a superb biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and she is a thorough scholar, a good storyteller, a sensitive reader, and a stylish writer. White Heat is something of a dual biography, sketching out the main events of the main figures’ lives, but it aims primarily at the points of intersection in those lives, trying...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Jennifer Wixson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Only lightly dunked, not steeped, in Emily Dickinson lore, I expected (and rather hoped) White Heat by Brenda Wineapple to document a torrid love affair between the reclusive Amherst poet and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a 19th century man-of-the-moment of whom I had never heard. However, what I discovered instead was a lovely tisane of the two, whose lives informed and infused each other.

Higginson, an abolitionist (who backed John Brown and mustered the 1st black regiment to fight in the Civil...more Only lightly dunked, not steeped, in Emily Dickinson lore, I expected (and rather hoped) White Heat by Brenda Wineapple to document a torrid love affair between the reclusive Amherst poet and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a 19th century man-of-the-moment of whom I had never heard. However, what I discovered instead was a lovely tisane of the two, whose lives informed and infused each other.

Higginson, an abolitionist (who backed John Brown and mustered the 1st black regiment to fight in the Civil War), a former Unitarian minister, proto-feminist, writer and all around genteel-man, was the person to whom the diminutive and somewhat cheeky Dickinson tendered herself, reaching out to him regarding the quality (and perhaps disposition) of her poetry. "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" she posed, after reading Higginson's piece in The Atlantic Monthly entitled, Letter to a Young Contributor. Thus began a passionate (on paper), mature and transcendent relationship that spanned a quarter century while the poet was alive, and continued on after Dickinson's death as Higginson become the mooring to whom Emily's sister Lavinia turned when she discovered the sea of poetry that Emily left behind. (And, oh boy! A lot of stuff happens after Dickinson's death, and I'm exceedingly grateful to Wineapple that she continues the story.)

In White Heat, Wineapple lays a framework of reference for both Dickinson and Higginson, allowing us to understand the social, religious, political and historical context in which these two lived. She cracks open the nut of 19th century New England revealing how rich was the protein from which Higginson feasted and how small and dry the nutmeat upon which Dickinson nibbled. Where Higginson turned his talents outward into social and political action, Dickinson turned inward into poetical reflection. The wonder of it is that Emily Dickinson was able to maintain her masterful literary integrity in a world that demanded perfectly composed sweetmeats such as those produced by Walt Whitman, AND, that Higginson, who obviously recognized Dickinson's genius, understood that the world simply was not ready for her non-canonical style.

As I read Wineapple's wonderfully intertwined dual biographies, I got the sense that neither Dickinson nor Higginson would have been as successful as they were (Higginson during his lifetime; Dickinson after her death) had they not shared part of their journeys together. In addition, the level of detail the author provides is so rich and minute that I came to appreciate Dickinson's quirky family quite as much as my own, and also learned to love the much maligned Higginson (blamed for torturing Dickinson's poetry in early pubications), who was apparently devoted to a wife whose long-term illness must have given him very little marital satisfaction. In fact, my regard for Higginson grew as my hopes for a torrid love affair between him and Dickinson faded, so much so that I'm now reading Higginson's own autobiography, Cheerful Yesterdays.

Initially, I found myself lazily sidestepping some of Wineapple's laborious and bookish vocabulary, erudite words (such as "erudite") that I hadn't stumbled across in years (sometimes her Mensa-styled prose was so thick I felt like I was reading bricks). However, as I came to appreciate the story I felt a dawning sense that I was missing something -- something that I didn't want to miss -- and I resorted to taking my pocket Webster to bed with me. Thus White Heat not only stimulated my soul, the book also excited my brain, and words such as "prestidigitator," "grise," and "cicerone" once fell into their proper places like bricks in a wall.

You don't need to be an Emily Dickinson fan or even acquainted with her poetry (plenty is contextually provided in the book) to find White Heat a satisfying and valuable read. If you love history, particularly 19th century New England history, you will love White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (less)

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Aug 08, 2012 John Pappas rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" Dickinson writes to her hoped for "Preceptor", Atlantic Monthly writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Perhaps because of the nature of Dickinson's friendship with Higginson, this book seems to be really a joint biography of the two friends, as opposed to just a careful study of only the influential relationship that helped bring Dickinson's work to the public. As such, there's much information here about Higginson. His tale, as a reformer,...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Andy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Emily, will you please come down from your room? Reclusive poet and famously elusive biographical subject, Emily Dickinson never strayed far from her family’s estate in Amherst, Mass., and yet we know that during her lifetime she sought out and maintained several intimate friendships, often through letters. One of her intimates was Thomas “Wentworth” Higginson, who was in his own time a famous essayist, radical abolitionist, and vocal supporter of women’s rights. Wentworth took early and copious...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Critics embraced this new angle on the life of Emily Dickinson, one of America's best-loved poets but also one of the most difficult to understand. While the subject of the book may seem rather narrow, reviewers claimed that Wineapple's excellent narrative and literary sensibilities keep White Heat from becoming overly obscure. Only the Boston Globe faulted Wineapple for reading too vaguely between the lines, literally, of Dickson and Wineapple's correspondence and for rehashing older material.

...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Eva rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I was in college, my apartment had a balcony that overlooked the site of Emily Dickinson's grave, and my downstairs neighbor would set up a telescope in the cemetery to stargaze. Going to college in Amherst meant I was right in Emily's hometown, and that helped give me appreciation of the sheltered world of Western Massachusetts in which she lived- even more sheltered a hundred years earlier.

I enjoyed this book, as much as it was often more like reading two or more related but separate book...more

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Sep 06, 2009 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

White Heat surprised me in that it revealed Emily Dickenson to be a passionate romantic secretly carrying on affairs of the heart through her poetry. Thomas Wentworth Higginson was so much more to Emily than a confidant of her writings. Brenda Wineapple put an interesting spin on this great American poet. After visiting the homestead and teaching Emily Dickenson for over thirty years, I thought I had a handle on her poetry and her sad life. I was so wrong! Although to the outsider she lived a qu...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

The first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist.

Their friendship began in 1862. The Civil War was raging. Dickinson was thirty-one; Higginson, thirty-eight. A former pastor at the Free Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, he wrote often for the cultural magazine of the day, The Atlantic Monthly—on gymnastics, women’s rights, and slavery. His ar...more The first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist.

Their friendship began in 1862. The Civil War was raging. Dickinson was thirty-one; Higginson, thirty-eight. A former pastor at the Free Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, he wrote often for the cultural magazine of the day, The Atlantic Monthly—on gymnastics, women’s rights, and slavery. His article “Letter to a Young Contributor” gave advice to readers who wanted to write for the magazine and offered tips on how to submit one’s work (“use black ink, good pens, white paper”).

Among the letters Higginson received in response was one scrawled in looping, difficult handwriting. Four poems were enclosed in a smaller envelope. He deciphered the scribble: “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?”

Higginson read the poems. The writing was unique, uncategorizable. It was clear to him that this was “a wholly new and original poetic genius,” and the memory of that moment stayed with him when he wrote about it thirty years later.

Emily Dickinson’s question inaugurated one of the least likely correspondences in American letters—between a man who ran guns to Kansas, backed John Brown, and would soon command the first Union regiment of black soldiers, and the eremitic, elusive poet who cannily told him she did not cross her “Father’s ground to any House or town.”

For the next quarter century, until her death in 1886, Dickinson sent Higginson dazzling poems, almost one hundred of them—many of them her best. Their metrical forms were unusual, their punctuation unpredictable, their images elliptical, innovative, unsentimental. Poetry torn up by the roots, Higginson later said, that “gives the sudden transitions.”

Dickinson was a genius of the faux-naïf variety, reclusive to be sure but more savvy than one might imagine, more self-conscious and sly, and certainly aware of her outsize talent. “Dare you see a Soul at the ‘White Heat’?” she wondered. She dared, and he did.

In this shimmering, revelatory work, Brenda Wineapple re-creates the extraordinary, delicate friendship that led to the publication of Dickinson’s poetry. And though she and Higginson met face-to-face only twice (he had never met anyone “who drained my nerve power so much,” he said), their friendship reveals much about Dickinson, throwing light onto both the darkened door of the poet’s imagination and a corner of the noisy century that she and Colonel Higginson shared.

White Heat is about poetry, politics, and love; it is, as well, a story of seclusion and engagement, isolation and activism—and the way they were related—in the roiling America of the nineteenth century.(less)

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Apr 04, 2009 Corey Murray rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a book that needed to be written. The friendship of Dickinson and Higginson, though famous, has gone largely unexplored. Higginson, aggressive and radical, but ultimately sensitive, and Dickinson, reclusive and birdlike, but challenging on paper, formed an unusual friendship, based almost solely on letters. They met only twice in their lives, but became necessary sounding boards for each other.

Brenda Wineapple is a very insightful writer who uses novelistic techniques to tell a nonfictio...more

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Nov 25, 2008 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

Having read all the recent biographies of Dickinson, I approached this book because it promised to tell me something of the Higginson literary scholars had in the previous century lumped with the Longfellow and Whittier school of gentility. Herein I found a man pushed and pulled by the tensions of the mid-19thc, a walking contradiction, a human, and I was glad for that. Yeah, he had a lot in common with Longfellow and Whittier, but so did a great many men and women. Our view of 19thc Americans i...more

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Feb 27, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brenda Wineapple writes an intimate portrait of Higginson and Dickinson with sensitivity and elegance. I was afraid it would be rather dry, but just the opposite is true. The author is heady and scholarly, but the writing takes off like an engrossing story, lifts you with it. There is nothing stodgy or stuffy about this book. The narrative flows with grace, and her prose style engages you with its intelligent delivery. It is thoroughly researched--while reading it, I was brought back in time and...more

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Oct 06, 2009 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very decent biography, of two people, really. A bit haphazard in places, I thought, but still very good.

One of my favorite Dickinson poems:

I died for beauty--but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room--

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For beauty", I replied--
"And I--for truth--Themself are One--
We Brethren are", He said--

And so, as Kinsmen met a Night--
We talked between the Rooms--
Until the Moss had reached our lips--
And covered up--Our name

...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bio, history

I was not as enamored of this as I’d hoped to be, but it was educational. It was slow, then got interesting, leveled out, got dull again, sped up, and slowed down, and so forth. There was a great deal of Civil War history, probably more than I needed, and a lot of analysis of Dickinson’s poetry, probably more than I wanted. But I did learn a great deal about Emily Dickinson and the Civil War colonel /writer/editor/ abolitionist with whom the poet had a 24-year correspondence. They met in person...more I was not as enamored of this as I’d hoped to be, but it was educational. It was slow, then got interesting, leveled out, got dull again, sped up, and slowed down, and so forth. There was a great deal of Civil War history, probably more than I needed, and a lot of analysis of Dickinson’s poetry, probably more than I wanted. But I did learn a great deal about Emily Dickinson and the Civil War colonel /writer/editor/ abolitionist with whom the poet had a 24-year correspondence. They met in person only twice. It was a friendship, a supposed mentoring relationship (although Wentworth would have been the first to admit he had nothing to teach her), and at times a long-distance flirtation. Thomas Wentworth Higginson was not a figure I’d known anything about before, and what an interesting character. I could have fallen a little bit in love with him myself. In the mid-nineteenth century, he was an activist of a rather radical stripe, working tirelessly on behalf of the rights of blacks both before and after Emancipation and on behalf of women. He led a unit of black soldiers in the Union Army, and I have never read before of any man in that era who was so respectful and supportive of women and so willing to advocate for their equality in all facets of life. Very cool. And Emily, although reclusive, was apparently not the shrinking little violet one might think, given her isolated life. She actually seemed like a pretty shrewd little cookie.

Despite the “White Heat” of the title (a reference to a Dickinson poem and to the intensity of her poetry), there was nothing overtly steamy about the relationship between Dickinson and Higginson. It was a different story regarding the long-term adulterous relationship Emily’s married brother Austin had with a married neighbor, Mabel Todd, who, along with Higginson, edited and arranged for publication of Emily’s poetry after her death. Mabel herself would be an interesting subject for a non-fiction book or a novel. The issues between Austin’s widow and the former mistress, and squabbling between them and the surviving Dickinson sister who owned the poems made for some interesting final chapters. Also enlightening were the stories about how Higginson and Todd went back and forth as co-editors regarding which poems the public was ready for, and to what degree the published ones should be tamed into a more conventional shape to make them more palatable for a Victorian audience unused to such innovative use of language. Cutting edge stuff then. Still is.

Extensively researched, the book contains 64 pages of notes, and Wineapple’s writing is really extremely good.
(less)

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Apr 29, 2012 angela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, on-writing, poetry

Finally took this off the shelf to blog about a Dickinson essay written by Adrienne Rich in the 70s. My intention to skim the book failed after getting lost in Wineapple's wonderful ability to build a story. After reading, backtracking, and marking all over the margins, I finally started at the beginning. The revelations regarding Dickinson's persona were refreshing. I don't think that Winapple's inference/interpretations regarding Dickinson's views on her femininity, faith, or sexuality are at...more

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Aug 08, 2010 Daphna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gorgeously, lyrically written, grippingly novelistic, and shot through with allusion and quotation that make palpable and moving her deep immersion in her subjects, Wineapple's work acknowledges the futility of biography (especially of Dickinson) while telling the story of Dickinson's friendship with her "preceptor," Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Her objective is to rehabilitate Higginson--to illuminate his truly radical abolitionism and his startling progressivism on women's rights and immigratio...more Gorgeously, lyrically written, grippingly novelistic, and shot through with allusion and quotation that make palpable and moving her deep immersion in her subjects, Wineapple's work acknowledges the futility of biography (especially of Dickinson) while telling the story of Dickinson's friendship with her "preceptor," Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Her objective is to rehabilitate Higginson--to illuminate his truly radical abolitionism and his startling progressivism on women's rights and immigration and to depict him as other than the hapless editor who butchered Dickinson's poems (he did some of that, too). Recovering Higginson as torn between activism and seclusion, literature and life, affects not only our understanding of him but our understanding of Dickinson. As Wineapple says in the introduction, to "neglect" their intense friendship

"reduces Dickinson to the frail recluse of Amherst, extraordinary but helpless and victimized by a bourgeois literary establishment best represented by Higginson. Gone is the Dickinson whose flinty perceptions we admire and whose shrewd assessment of people and things informed her witty, half-serious choice of him as Preceptor, a choice she did not regret. Gone [when we see Higginson as patronizing editor, not as friend:] is the woman loyal to those elect few whom she truly trusted. Gone is the sphere of action in which she performed, choosing her own messengers. Gone, too, is Higginson" (13).

Brilliantly structured and plotted, the book alternates between Higginson and Dickinson in a back-and-forth that's never so predictable as to become strained, and not so bound to its subject as to ignore the rich and illuminating tangents that arise. Though Wineapple sometimes overreaches--how can one know, for example, that while encamped in South Carolina during the Civil War, Higginson "sought out [Dickinson's:] handwriting" "when the mail arrived"?--she knows her characters well enough to render her imaginings believable if not provable.

My complaints are few, but they include Wineapple's inattention to textual variants (mostly, yes, because she's quoting only the versions sent to Higginson, but still, to ignore this practice is to ignore an important and radical element of Dickinson's craft) and the way the citations are done. Wineapple has clearly done her homework in the archives, and her citations document primary sources extensively. However, and incredibly frustratingly, they do not document which claims come from which secondary sources: she offers only a partial bibliography, making it impossible to track a great deal of the facts she mentions and doing a disservice to people who want to follow the trail she has begun to blaze.(less)

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Aug 16, 2011 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I finally closed the cover, I said to myself "A hell of a book."

In a way, this is really a biography of Higginson--a dreamer and a reformer who lived long enough to both command the first unit of African American soldiers during the Civil War (no, the guy from Glory wasn't the first!) and was a founder of the NAACP. He was a writer who surrounded himself with interesting people. Because of this, Dickinson reached out to him, and they began a remarkable correspondence. Ultimately, he was one...more

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Jul 03, 2009 Becky Lowndes rated it 2 of 5 stars

Overall, a disappointment. I don't feel at the end of the book that I really know much more about Dickinson than I did when I started. I know a LOT more about her dear friend Higginson. There were lengthy (and, to my way of thinking, pointless) digressions about Higginson's military career and his comings and goings. There was quite a bit of coverage of the sniping and warfare among Dickinson's self-appointed literary executors and the damage they did to her work -- which was interesting, and mo...more

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Aug 04, 2009 Denny Stein rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Poets, historians.

It's taken me a year to read White Heat, but it was one of those books that pulled me back each time I put it down. In the tenth grade we studied, and I hated, Emily Dickinson, and poetry. Now, as a published poet and writer, at age 62, I have been given an opportunity to read and understand her. I also found Higginson's diary - Army Life in a Black Regiment - free on Kindle and have read that. His language is poetic and detailed, and a pleasure to read. Not to mention educational, in the finest...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Erica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Several passages were engrossing, especially for those who enjoy nonfiction that combines literary luminaries with history. At times Wineapple was too sure of her interpretations of their relationship, as opposed to letting them have the full berth of the ambiguity that was there, but overall, the book succeeded in immersing me in a time and correspondence that meant something, that produced poems and confusion and provoked thought.

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Sep 29, 2009 Gail rated it 4 of 5 stars

Thank you, Miss Ali, for the loaner. I found it touch to bend the spine of a pal's unread book. So far, all that I'd hoped....quite extraordinary.

Only Dickinson's half of the correspondence remains, thanks to good old sister Vinnie. Wineapple gleans many sparkling new bits of information about Dickinson. In the process she also debunks a few Dickinsonian myths. I confess I knew nothing of Higginson before reading this book. A fascinating, uniquely American character.

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Jan 29, 2009 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think of ED's poetry as challenging and difficult, but reading this book I realized just how many of her phrases and lines are indelibly etched in my mind. It made me want to go back and re-read all of her poems. Enjoyed learning about Higginson and realized again what a long hard time this country has had living up to the words of our own Constitution. Also struck by how miniscule the literary world was back then . . .

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Aug 09, 2009 James Murphy rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is wonderful biography. I was impressed by Wineapple's ability to present anecdotes and facts about Dickinson I'm not familiar with. Her convincing understanding of the formative teenager Emily sliding into eccentricity gives her picture of the mature Emily credibility. All of Wineapple's biographies seem a fresh approach, like a wrestler coming at his opponent with a different hold and angle. This, too, providing a dual biography of Dickinson and her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson. I ma...more

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Nov 09, 2010 Benjaminriley rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very interesting book that gives you a view into the lives of two people from the 1800s, one of which just happens to be one of the greatest American poets in history. The relationship between Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson was strange at best and quite confusing. Brenda Wineapple does an excellent job of putting the pieces together and filling in the many blanks with ideas and suggestions that flow very well. Although this book is interesting, it was a difficult read....more

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Jan 02, 2010 Lisa added it

Interesting history of both Dickinson and Higginson. Much of Dickinson's poetry eludes me - I feel like I should read it with a professor helping me along. It's comforting to know that Higginson, a member of the literati in Dickinson's days, was also unable to fully grasp her meaning. Good read for April, National Poetry Month.

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About Brenda Wineapple

Brenda Wineapple is the author of the award-winning Hawthorne: A Life, Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner, and Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in many publications, among them The American Scholar, The New York Times Book Review, Parnassus, Poetry, and The Nation. A Guggenheim fellow, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, an...more

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3361966-white-heat?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320554927l/3361966.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3361966-white-heat?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple[/url]

White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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