American poet, Emily Dickinson, was born in 1830. Although a popular student, Dickinson, at a young age, was known for her eccentricities such as her fondness for white clothing. As she grew older, this evolved into a more notable introversion; spending much of her time with her somewhat oppressive family, and later refusing to leave her room. In 1858, Dickinson began to collect her poems into hand-sewn books to ready them for publication, yet her work was rejected. Indeed, fewer than ten of the almost 1800 poems that she wrote were published in her lifetime, critics putting this down to her style. Lack of titles, short lines and unconventional rhyming schemes, so different to the conventions of the day, led publishers to doubt the potential popularity of her work; some even changing it to be more in keeping with contemporary poetry. Dickinson died in 1886, at the age of 55; yet it was only in 1955 that the first, complete, unedited collection of her poetry became available.
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