Home > > A 785: etext transcription
This is one of a number of late manuscripts in which the opposite sides of the paper constitute separate textual spaces. Still, it is possible that Dickinson wished to preserve both fragments and even to associate them. The scissoring has been done carefully, so that both texts are preserved. The rough-copy text on A 785 is an extrageneric fragment, possibly destined for incorporation into a poem, letter, or other composition; the fair-copy text on the reverse is an address to Mabel Loomis Todd. The provenance and transmission history of the document are unclear. It is unlikely, despite Mabel Loomis Todd's claim, that the document was sent to her: Dickinson did not send rough-copy drafts out of her workshop. A single stray pencil mark appears on A 785, below the text of the fragment and along the right-hand edge of the paper; it may belong to an earlier text now lost beyond the tear.