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Rating: 
Summary: This is not really the edition you want.
Review: I don't doubt that it's possible to enjoy Emily Dickinson's poems in editions like this. But you should be aware that you are not really reading what she wrote. You are reading what earlier editors _wish_ she had written - a sort of 'tidied-up' and regularized version, the badly tampered-with-text of a genius by those who weren't. In a way, the situation is a bit like the one that prevails with regard to food. Would you rather eat natural food or genetically modified food? Maybe the modified food doesn't taste any different, but it might be doing harmful things to us that the author of real food never intended. So why take a risk when we can have the real thing ? There are two major editors who can be relied on for accurate texts of ED's poems. These are Dickinson scholars R. W. Franklin and Thomas H. Johnson. Both produced large Variorum editions for scholars, along with reader's editions of the Complete Poems for the ordinary reader. Details of their respective reader's editions are as follows. THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON : Reading Edition. Edited by R. W. Franklin. 692 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-67624-6 (hbk.) THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 784 pp. Boston : Little, Brown, 1960 and Reissued. ISBN: 0316184136 (pbk.) For those who don't feel up to tackling the Complete Poems, there is Johnson's abridgement of his Reader's edition, an excellent selection of what he feels were her best poems: FINAL HARVEST : Emily Dickinson's Poems. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 352 pages. New York : Little Brown & Co, 1997. ISBN: 0316184152 (paperbound). Friends, do yourself a favor and get Johnson's edition. Why accept a watered-down version when you can have the real thing?
Rating:
Summary: This is not really the edition you want.
Review: I don't doubt that it's possible to enjoy Emily Dickinson's poems in editions like this. But you should be aware that you are not really reading what she wrote. You are reading what earlier editors _wish_ she had written - a sort of 'tidied-up' and regularized version, the badly tampered-with-text of a genius by those who weren't. In a way, the situation is a bit like the one that prevails with regard to food. Would you rather eat natural food or genetically modified food? Maybe the modified food doesn't taste any different, but it might be doing harmful things to us that the author of real food never intended. So why take a risk when we can have the real thing ? There are two major editors who can be relied on for accurate texts of ED's poems. These are Dickinson scholars R. W. Franklin and Thomas H. Johnson. Both produced large Variorum editions for scholars, along with reader's editions of the Complete Poems for the ordinary reader. Details of their respective reader's editions are as follows. THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON : Reading Edition. Edited by R. W. Franklin. 692 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-67624-6 (hbk.) THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 784 pp. Boston : Little, Brown, 1960 and Reissued. ISBN: 0316184136 (pbk.) For those who don't feel up to tackling the Complete Poems, there is Johnson's abridgement of his Reader's edition, an excellent selection of what he feels were her best poems: FINAL HARVEST : Emily Dickinson's Poems. Edited by Thomas H. Johnson. 352 pages. New York : Little Brown & Co, 1997. ISBN: 0316184152 (paperbound). Friends, do yourself a favor and get Johnson's edition. Why accept a watered-down version when you can have the real thing?
Rating: 
Summary: Good for sentimental value, little else
Review: THE SELECTED POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON retains sentimental value for me because it was my introduction to her work. I still remember the day I picked up this thin volume in the bookstore at Lloyd Center, Oregon's largest mall and allegedly the world's first (the mall where Tonya Harding began skating lessons at age four). I was only 17 and was intrigued by the book's jacket with references to Emily breaking rules and changing the world. It was a great introduction. Over the years Dickinson's lyricism has had a profound impact on me. And it all started with this book. As the two introductory essays in SELECTED POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON explain, Dickinson never finished her poems. She gave no specific directions on how they should be put to print (in some cases she left behind two or three rough drafts per poem, leaving the final decision to the editor). But the versions contained in this book are much more conventional than what I eventually found in more extensive volumes, such as THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON edited by Thomas H. Johnson. My intuition tells me that the less conventional versions are closer to what Dickinson wanted to present to the world. And I therefore would not recommend SELECTED POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON. There are better collections available. Andrew Parodi
Rating: 
Summary: You gotta buy this book.
Review: This book is awesome! Everyone should buy it.
Rating:
Summary: This is the edition that you want!
Review: This is a superb edition of Dickinson's poems. It is "reader friendly" with updated punctuation (which purists may not like) with an excellent selection. The Billy Collins introduction is outstanding, being highly informative and entertaining without any pretensions whatsoever. He adds great insight into Dickinson's use of common meter, language, metaphor, and other techniques. Grab a bottle of water and an apple and spend a great afternoon or two with this exceptional volume.
Rating:
Summary: This is the edition that you want!
Review: This is a superb edition of Dickinson's poems. It is "reader friendly" with updated punctuation (which purists may not like) with an excellent selection. The Billy Collins introduction is outstanding, being highly informative and entertaining without any pretensions whatsoever. He adds great insight into Dickinson's use of common meter, language, metaphor, and other techniques. Grab a bottle of water and an apple and spend a great afternoon or two with this exceptional volume.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION
Review: This is an extremely irresponsible edition of Dickinson's works. Collin's not only divides Dickinson's poetry into arbitrary and insulting categories such as "Time and Eternity," but also eliminates entire stanzas, rewrites whole lines, inserts and subtracts punctuation, all without a single note to indicate his editorial meddling. If anything, this edition just highlights Collin's own inadequacy as a poet as he takes perfectly lucid, nuanced and metaphorically packed lines in Dickinson and reduces them to gibberish. If you want a smaller edition of Dickinson's poems than the authoritative and responsible Johnson edition, buy the Shambala pocket edition of Dickinson instead, which respects the poet's intentions--and maintains her brilliance.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION
Review: This is an extremely irresponsible edition of Dickinson's works. Collin's not only divides Dickinson's poetry into arbitrary and insulting categories such as "Time and Eternity," but also eliminates entire stanzas, rewrites whole lines, inserts and subtracts punctuation, all without a single note to indicate his editorial meddling. If anything, this edition just highlights Collin's own inadequacy as a poet as he takes perfectly lucid, nuanced and metaphorically packed lines in Dickinson and reduces them to gibberish. If you want a smaller edition of Dickinson's poems than the authoritative and responsible Johnson edition, buy the Shambala pocket edition of Dickinson instead, which respects the poet's intentions--and maintains her brilliance.
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