Emily Dickinson (Massachusetts, 1830-1886) was an American poet. She led a reclusive life, which has inspired many biographies and plenty of baseless speculation. Despite having written almost 1800 poems, she only published ten in her lifetime, always using a pen name. Almost a complete unknown during her lifetime, Dickinson is now considered to be, alongside Walt Whitman, the most important American poet of the 19th century.