** 'This book is unforcedly and powerfully original' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ** 'Gordon takes the lid off the violent emotional life of the Dickinson family and its far-reaching effects on the poet's work. What she exposes is a seething Peyton Place of adultery, betrayal and lifelong feuding. Lyndall Gordon has opened the way to an entirely new reading of Dickinson's life with this brilliant tale of turbulence both on and off the page' LITERARY REVIEW ** 'Gordon makes this story venomous, thrilling, shocking, impassioned and sometimes darkly farcical. The myth is Saint Emily. Gordon reveals the sarcastic, sexual, sophisticated, self-assured woman ... Gordon's book makes you read Dickinson again with polished eyes: expect it on the prize lists soon' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY ** 'As Gordon tells it, this story of the terrible fascination Dickinson exerted on her heirs is as rich as a novel by Henry James. There is the same complexity of motives, the same grim comedy ... "Tell the truth but tell it slant" was Dickinson's advice to herself. In showing how the public image of "Emily Dickinson" has been built up over the years, alternately embroidered by fantasies and barnacled with lies, Gordon does something much more important. Perhaps for the first time since Dickinson's death, she invites us to meet the poet head-on' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Author of the prizewinning biographies ELIOT'S EARLY YEARS, ELIOT'S NEW LIFE and VIRGINIA WOOLF: A WRITER'S LIFE. Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Lyndall received her doctorate from Columbia University and is a fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.