The Poet and Her Biographer

This Was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson by George Frisbee Whicher. Charles Scribner’s Sons. $3.00

It had better be said at once that Mr. Whicher is not a very good critic, but that without being a good critic he is probably as good a biographer as Emily Dickinson will ever have. The book is an excellent specimen of American research scholarship: Mr. Whicher knows more about Miss Dickinson’s life than anybody else, and he brings to this knowledge a common sense that none of the other biographers has owned. The formidable problem of Miss Dickinson’s lover he takes in his stride. He has found out the name of the Philadelphia preacher whom she loved, and his theory of the nature of their relationship comes directly out of the evidence—more evidence than any other biographer has examined. The value of this evidence is negative, but it is indispensable if it will allow critics to assail its insubordination as mere fact. One may say quite simply that Mr. Whicher’s achievement consists in laying the ghost of Emily Dickinson, who in her own person must henceforth lose mystery, and retain only the cool and rational interest that attaches to great poets anywhere.