This internationally -acclaimed study is now re-introduced with a substantial new introduction by the author. It is a work of extraordinary finesse which offers a full-length study which integrates the poet's homoeroticism into an interpretation of her poetry. In this new edition Paula Bennett surveys other analysis by critics of Dickinson's work, and the conundrums these have raised. Bennett illuminates Dickinson's desire to be a strong' woman poet against the background of her situation as a 19th-century woman. The author provides clear, incisive analyses of Dickinson's poetry, with a wide-angle view of the poet's cultural situation. She also gives sensitive discussion of Dickinson's sexual imagery. It is a major contribution to our understanding of representations of female sexuality in Art and in literature.