American poet Emily Dickinson was BOTD in 1830. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts to a prosperous middle-class family, she was a promising student, but left school in her teens, living with her family for the rest of her life and seldom leaving her hometown. A prolific writer and correspondent, she wrote over 1,800 poems over 40 years, only 10 of which were published in her lifetime. Working mostly in hymn-like stanzas of four lines, with unusual half rhymes and unconventional grammar and syntax, she created a unique poetic style, matched by an equally intense emotional vision. Her work returned compulsively to the themes of death (“Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me”), isolation and loneliness (“I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you—Nobody—too?”), and occasional bursts of optimism (“Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul“), while also displaying a sardonic wit and playfulness (“Tell all the truth but tell it slant — / Success in Circuit lies”). Dickinson never married, though appears to have had an unrequited crush on an unknown correspondent, whom she called “Master”. She became increasingly reclusive in later life, dying in 1886 aged 55. Her work was published after her death, championed in the 20th century by queer poets Hart Crane and Elizabeth Bishop. Dickinson has since become one of America’s most celebrated and frequently-read poets. Many biographers and literary critics, notably Camille Paglia, have argued that Dickinson was lesbian, pointing to her close friendships with Susan Gilbert and Kate Scott Turner, and the simmering eroticism in her writing (“Wild nights – Wild nights! / Were I with thee…. Might I but moor- tonight-/ In thee!”). Recent dramatisations of her life include Terence Davies’ biopic A Quiet Passion starring Cynthia Nixon, the lesbian-themed rom-com Wild Nights with Emily starring Molly Shannon and the TV series Dickinson, in which Hailee Steinfeld’s Emily gets a feminist makeover, smokes opium and pursues a lesbian relationship. One hopes Dickinson would have approved of her posthumous reputation, famously noting “Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne’er succeed”.