A 864: etext transcription
- Physical Description
- Manuscript: A 864
- Date: [last decade (THJ)]
- Status: text 1: message-fragment, fair-copy, abandoned, not mailed; text 2: fragment, extrageneric
- Formula: 1 fragment
- Paper: laid, white stationery
- Dimensions: 24 x 126 mm
- Edges: top: scissored; left: torn; reverse: bottom: scissored; left: torn
- Folds: folded vertically into uneven halves
- Media: pencil
- Hand: fair
- Collection
- Amherst College Library
- Transmission History
- MSS from LND to MLT, 1891?
- Publication History
- A 864, text 1: Letters (1958), PF 45 A 864, text 2: NEQ 28 (September 1955): 315; Letters (1958), PF 88
- Commentary
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This is one of a number of late manuscripts in which the opposite sides of the paper constitute separate textual spaces. The fair-copy text on A 864v appears to be an excerpt from a letter, or, possibly, a very brief but complete message; the rough-copy text on A 864 is an extrageneric fragment, possibly destined for incorporation into a poem, a letter, or a longer pensée. Dickinson revised the rough-copy text as she wrote, canceling "occupations" and substituting "entertainments." This fragment was probably composed after Dickinson abandoned the fair-copy message-fragment and after the paper was torn and scissored. It is possible, however, that Dickinson wished to associate the two texts. The scissoring has been done carefully—only the cross of the "T" of "Thank" has been sheared off—perhaps suggesting that she cut the document herself. The nature of the association, if indeed an association exists, remains unknown and is probably unrecoverable.
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- Tags
- Text was composed between c.1870 and c.1886
- Document was discovered among Dickinson's papers, unbound
- Laid, white, unruled
- Document was folded into uneven halves
- Composed by Dickinson in pencil
- Composed by Dickinson in a fair-copy hand
- Composed by Dickinson in a rough-copy hand
- Dickinson's writing appears on both sides of the paper/leaf
- Text contains additions or variants
- Text contains cancellations
- Amherst College Library, Special Collections