Emily Dickinson's open folios
Subtitle: scenes of reading, surfaces of writing
By: [edited by] Marta L. Werner.
Contributors: Werner, Marta L., 1964-
Series: [Editorial theory and literary criticism]
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 308
Subjects: Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 -- Manuscripts -- Facsimiles; Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 -- Criticism, Textual; Manuscripts, American -- Facsimiles; Manuscripts, American -- Editing
Description: Emily Dickinson's Open Folios is a scholarly edition and aesthetic exploration of a group of forty late drafts and fragments hitherto known as the "Lord letters." The drafts are presented in facsimile form alongside typed transcriptions that reproduce as fully as possible the shock of script and startling array of visual details inscribed on the surfaces of the manuscripts.

Marta L. Werner argues that a redefinition of the editorial enterprise is needed to approach the revelations of these writings - the details that have been all but erased by editorial interventions and print conventions in the twentieth century. Paradoxically, "un-editing" them allows a better understanding of the relationship between medium and messages.

Werner's commentary forsakes the claims to comprehensiveness generally associated with scholarly narrative in favor of a series of speculative and fragmentary "close-ups" - a portrait in pieces. Finally, she proposes the acts of both reading and writing as visual poems.

. A crucial reference for Dickinson scholars, this book is also of primary importance to textual scholars, editorial theorists, and students of gender and cultural studies interested in the production, dissemination, and interpretation of works by women writers.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-308).
Series statement from jacket.