Her message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me
Author’s Note
I have relied for details of the affair between Mabel Todd and Austin Dickinson on Polly Longsworth’s superb Austin and Mabel: The Amherst Affair and Love Letters of Austin Dickinson and Mabel Loomis Todd. This is the source of most of my extracts from their letters and journals. I’m indebted to Polly Longsworth for her scholarly work, for her kindness and assistance to me when in Amherst, and for her further assistance in fact-checking my manuscript. I have added material from my own researches in the Todd–Bingham Archive at Yale, and from Mabel Todd’s short story “Footsteps.” For the rest, I have of course turned to my own imagination to re-create the scenes between the lovers.
My story is limited to the love affair, but relations between the Dickinsons and the Todds became complex and acrimonious in later years. Austin’s will was disputed and Emily’s legacy fought over in claims and counterclaims, in rival editions of the poems and in rival memoirs. A full edition of the poems was only published in 1955, in three authoritative volumes edited by Thomas H. Johnson.
I’m grateful to Jane Wald and the staff of the Emily Dickinson Museum for their kindness to me in Amherst, and for their openness to my project; and to Scott Ardizzone of Jones Group Realtors, Amherst, who first answered my questions about the houses in the town and then gave me a personal guided tour; and to Libby Klekowski, who showed me round the Hills house at 35 Triangle Street, which has for many years been the home of the Amherst Woman’s Club.
The fictional characters in Amherst have appeared in my earlier novels. Jack and Alice can be met at the age of eleven in The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life. Their tentative romance begins eight years later in All the Hopeful Lovers. The story of Alice’s grandmother develops in Motherland and Reckless. Nick Crocker’s past love affair with Jack’s mother, Laura, and his attempt to rekindle that love, is told in The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life. Attentive readers will find many more seeds which I’ve planted, waiting for their turn to flower.
This sequence of six novels has been overseen by my matchless agent, Clare Alexander, and by my editor, Jane Wood. Jane’s sensitive and thorough notes have guided and enriched the novels, and I’m more grateful for her stewardship than I can say.
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About the Author
© JERRY BAUER
WILLIAM NICHOLSON is a screenwriter, playwright, television writer, and novelist. Perhaps best known for his Academy Award–nominated screenplays for Shadowlands and Gladiator, he has also written the screenplays for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Sarafina, Les Misérables, and The Long Walk to Freedom. He is the author several young adult and fantasy novels and a sequence of contemporary adult novels set in England. He lives in Tunbridge Wells, England, with his wife and children.
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Bibliography
Bingham, Millicent Todd. Ancestors” Brocades: The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945.
———. Emily Dickinson’s Home. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955. Reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1967.
———. Emily Dickinson: A Revelation. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954.
Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. 3 vols. 1955. Reprint, Boston: Back Bay Books, Little, Brown, 1976.
Gordon, Lyndall. Lives like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds. New York: Viking, 2010.
Longsworth, Polly. Austin and Mabel: The Amherst Affair and Love Letters of Austin Dickinson and Mabel Loomis Todd. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984.
Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. 1974; reprint Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Todd, Mabel Loomis. “Footprints.” New York Independent, September 27, 1883.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. Emily Dickinson. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, c1988.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by William Nicholson Originally published in 2015 in Great Britain by Quercus Editions Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
The poems of Emily Dickinson are reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2015
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Jacket photographs: Emily Dickinson daguerreotype © West Collection/Alamy
Emily Dickinson House, Amherst, Massachusetts, © Susan Pease/Alamy
Blue Sky Clouds © KZWW/Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nicholson, William.
Amherst : a novel / William Nicholson. — First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
pages ; cm
“Simon & Schuster fiction original hardcover.”
1. Dickinson, Emily, 1830–1886—Fiction. 2. Women poets, American—19th century—Fiction. 3. Screenwriters—Fiction. 4. Adultery—Fiction.5. Amherst (Mass.)—History—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6064.I235A82 2015
823'.914—dc23
2014022219
ISBN 978-1-4767-4040-9
ISBN 978-1-4767-4042-3 (ebook)
William Nicholson, Amherst
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