The Barnes & Noble Classics edition of "The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson offers more than a passing glimpse at why the simple words of this Amherst poet live on and excite new readers each and every year. In the back of this volume the reader will find contemporaneous criticism which attempts to understand the surge of Dickinson's popularity upon the posthumous publication of her poetry, as well as a discussion of her legacy--the reappropriation of her work into the genres of theater, dance, visual art, and of course, modern poetry.

Rachel Wetzsteon received her doctorate from Columbia University in twentieth-century literature. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University, and in 2001, she received the prestigious Witter Bynner Prize for poetry. Wetzsteon has published dozens of poems, as well as the volumes "The Other Stars (1994) and "Home and Away (1998).