Essay selections offer readers a variety of perspectives on Dickinson through the eyes of some of today's best Dickinson scholars. One essay explores the influences of New England Puritanism, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and the Civil War on Dickinson's work, while another offers a close reading of several poems to show how experiencing their sound patterns and syntax can inform our understanding of them. Previously published essays discuss the power of her poetry and her complex relations with the natural world and Christian heaven.