Why one Emily Dickinson biographer believed she had epilepsy

A comprehensive biography of Emily Dickinson, the influential American poet

This deep dive into Dickinson's biography includes a fascinating anecdote about her time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary—where she was distinguished from the "established Christians" and deemed "without hope"—as well as the significance of her correspondence with close friend Susan Gilbert, one of her primary readers and eventual sister-in-law.

Characterizing Emily Dickinson's distinctive poetic style

Dickinson's poems are generally short, untitled works that are lyrical, which means they seek to express feelings rather than narrate stories. They're also infused with common meter, a rhythm used in much popular music, and deploy frequent dashes as both punctuation and an idiosyncratic poetic device.

Debunking the myth of Dickinson's antisocial seclusion

It's true that the poet largely kept to herself in her late-30s, spending nearly all her time at her father's house, and when she did venture out into the world, she'd wear white, facts that led American history to label her a strange, antisocial recluse. But, as this essay shows, that image is not entirely true, evident in the many relationships she maintained through her letters.

Listen to 3 scholars discuss the work of Emily Dickinson

Fiona Green, Linda Freedman, and Paraic Finnerty—three British academics who study Dickinson—discuss the poet's life, distinctive writing style, and impact on the generations who followed, illustrating that part of Dickinson's appeal lies in her open-ended verse, which invites readers' many interpretations.

Why Emily Dickinson was once better known as a gardener than a poet

Dickinson published very few of her poems during her lifetime, but many in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, knew that she tended to her family's massive garden. In this deep dive, Tom Christopher explores how Dickinson's interest in gardening and botany, including the assembly of a massive book of dried plants, influenced her work.

Emily Dickinson was a prolific baker

Dickinson scholars have collected her recipes for gingerbread, doughnuts, and more, noting that she often wrote poems on the backs of them. The Emily Dickinson Museum says that the kitchen "was a space of creative ferment for her, and that the writing of poetry mixed in her life with the making of delicate treats."

Browse Emily Dickinson's original handwritten poems

Harvard's Emily Dickinson Archive offers free access to the poet's papers from over a dozen libraries, allowing you to see the original drafts of some of her most famous works, sometimes scribbled on envelopes and scraps of paper. (And, even better, you can search the database by typing in your favorite lines!)

Why Emily Dickinson's poems were heavily edited after her death

Mabel Loomis Todd worked alongside Dickinson's confidant, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to publish the first volumes of Dickinson's poems in 1890 and 1891. They removed many of the poem's idiosyncrasies, including their dashes, and created titles where Dickinson had provided none.

Breaking down how Dickinson viewed letters as an extension of her poetry

The poet's many correspondences were dashed with playful arrangements of text, offering her pen pals surprises once they opened their envelopes. Jana Dambrogio and Daniel Starza Smith explain how Dickinson even creatively used the 19th-century security technique of letterlocking in poetic ways.

Historians theorize Vincent Van Gogh suffered from Ménière's disease or epilepsy

A century after researchers suggested he suffered from epilepsy, some researchers in the 1990s began to support an alternate diagnosis: Ménière's disease, since he had suffered from severe, repeated attacks of disabling vertigo. Still, some researchers remain skeptical of the Ménière's diagnosis. One posits that Van Gogh had temporal epilepsy complicated by his absinthe consumption.

How Mary Cassatt's sister acted as her muse

Lydia Cassatt moved to Paris to live with her sister and manage the household so Mary could work on her art. In the process, she became the subject of many of Mary's paintings, and when she grew ill, Cassatt captured her slow decline in vivid detail, an act that ultimately changed the course of her career.

Why might someone want to stay in psychosis?

Author Abigail Gosselin writes that her verbal auditory hallucination, often assumed by others to be harmful or threatening in nature, offered a salve to loneliness, even as it told her to kill herself. This perceived benefit and others Gosselin shares offer insight into why people in psychosis may struggle to adhere to treatment and medication plans.

Barbara Kingsolver's 'Demon Copperhead' reframes Dickens for the opioid crisis

The 2022 novel is a retelling of Dickens' autobiographical coming-of-age novel "David Copperfield." Kingsolver moves the story from Victorian England to contemporary Appalachia, where the opioid crisis is raging. The book won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The deadly genetic disease that steals shut-eye

Few are haunted by fatal familial insomnia. This neurodegenerative disease is typically carried through bloodlines via genetic mutation of the prion protein gene, forcing the body to create abnormal and pathological protein variations that can corrupt normal versions. This article follows a musician as they attempt to come to terms with the FFI plaguing their family (and, possibly, their future).

Twain claimed to possess 'mental telegraphy'

In an 1891 essay, the writer claimed to possess psychic powers. It’s something that seemingly supported by his mother and his own death: Twain predicted he would die the day after Halley’s Comet returned in 1910, which did indeed happen.

'For it would seem—her case proved it—that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.'

- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in "Orlando: A Biography"

A brain scientist's experience with a stroke

What happens when a leading brain scientist has a stroke of her own? Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor recounts moment by moment watching her brain function slow and then cease, followed by a prolonged recovery. Through this experience, she details what she learned about the phenomenon of stroke and how it has impacted her research ever since.

In 2011, a mysterious illness spread around LeRoy, New York

A handful of girls were stricken with bizarre twitches, tics, and spasms — all apparently involuntary. Some believed the incident to be conversion disorder, an illness where emotional troubles have physical symptoms.

Read passages from Truth's autobiography, dictated because she was illiterate

Because Truth was illiterate, her memoir was dictated to and written by Olive Gilbert. Published in 1850, "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth" recounts her life in slavery, escape to freedom, and religious awakening.

Insurance denials prevent lifesaving care for patients with eating disorders

A patient living with anorexia nervosa was told by her insurance company that she wasn't sick enough to receive needed care. Her experience highlights how some insurers across Washington state focus on less useful metrics like body mass index and weight to gauge sickness instead of psychiatric symptoms that may better illustrate the urgency of receiving care.

Berenson's frailty led her to basketball

When Senda Berenson tried to study piano at school, she realized she was too frail. In 1890, she dropped piano and enrolled in the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics to increase her strength, which led her to a career in physical education.

Some Nobel laureates have expressed beliefs in pseudoscience after winning

Examples of the phenomenon, known as Nobelitis or Nobel disease, include promoting psychic research, harmful practices like eugenics, and seeing talking raccoons. Increased external pressures after a win and a greater spotlight may contribute to developing or exposing these beliefs.

How the government caught Billie Holiday

Louis McKay—who was Holiday's manager and abusive husband—worked with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to ensure Holiday was caught with drugs. She was eventually put on trial and sentenced to a year in prison, where she briefly got sober.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Read a study about racial differences in Lyme disease diagnosis

The research published in September 2025 examined differences in Lyme disease diagnosis among Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries using data from 2016 to 2021. It notes that though US Lyme disease surveillance data indicates more than 90% of diagnosed Lyme cases are among white people, people of color—particularly those who identify as Black or African American—have higher rates of more severe disease of Lyme, with symptoms including arthritis and neurologic impacts.

Watch actress Kristen Bell discuss her challenges with depression and anxiety

Bell describes how depression can make it difficult to celebrate good news, and how decision fatigue can make simple decisions feel Herculean. She reveals how she wishes she'd discussed these struggles publicly earlier in her career.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.