A 540: etext transcription
- Physical Description
- Manuscript: A 540
- Date: [last decade (THJ)]
- Status: fragment, extrageneric
- Formula: 1 fragment
- Paper: wrapper, Chocolat Meunier
- Dimensions: 116 x 68 mm
- Edges: top, bottom, left: torn
- Folds: folded horizontally into uneven quarters
- Media: pencil
- Hand: rough
- Collection
- Amherst College Library
- Transmission History
- MSS from LND to MLT, 1891?
- Publication History
- NEQ 28 (September 1955): 292 n; Letters (1958), PF 92
- Commentary
-
One of the many brief extrageneric texts found among her late papers after her death, Dickinson's final intentions toward this fragment remain unknown. It may have been destined for incorporation into a poem, a letter, or another composition. In its present form, it appears to be a list of variant (or additional) word choices, perhaps for a poem-draft since lost, destroyed, or beyond positive identification. The variant, "by duller," for "to duller," appears to have occurred to Dickinson during the initial drive of composition.
-
- Tags
- Text was composed between c.1870 and c.1886
- Document was discovered among Dickinson's papers, unbound
- Chocolat Meunier wrapper
- Document was folded into quarters, horizontally or vertically
- Composed by Dickinson in pencil
- Composed by Dickinson in a rough-copy hand
- Dickinson's writing appears on one side of the paper/leaf only
- Dickinson composed her text around, over, or on the verso of a printed text
- Text contains additions or variants
- Text contains illegible letters, words, and/or passages
- Amherst College Library, Special Collections