Traces the lives of three American women, Puritan, Victorian, and modern, and compares the themes and philosophy of their poetry.

Emily Dickinson, one of the most important American poets of the nineteenth century, remains an intriguing and fascinating writer. This book includes eleven new essays by accomplished Dickinson scholars. They cover Dickinson's biography, publication history, poetic themes and strategies, and her historical and cultural contexts. As a woman poet, Dickinson's literary persona has become incredibly resonant in the popular imagination. She has been portrayed...

Collection of primary source letters and speeches.

Henry, now forty-five, marries Jane Seymour. Jane helps to reconcile Mary with her father, but only after Mary signs a paper admitting that she is illegitimate. Jane gives birth to a son, but dies shortly thereafter. Devastated by Jane's death, Henry locks himself away, drawing fantasy palaces, with caustic court jester Will Sommers as his sole companion. Henry then marries Anne of Cleves, a plain and unsophisticated German aristrocrat that he soon...