Emily’s Dickinson’s poems are familiar to most of us from high school English classes, yet the poet herself remains an enigma. Dickinson is known as a recluse who published little of her work. After her death, 1,800 poems were found in her desk drawers.

Author Martha Ackmann’s book “These Fevered Days” allows us to see the world through Dickinson’s eyes by chronicling ten important moments in Dickinson’s life. What emerges is a portrait of a woman who is passionate about writing and who guards her time fiercely. She lives a vivid life of the mind, although her letters reveal several possible romances.

Ackmann is known for her books about women who have changed America. She has taught seminars on Dickinson at Mount Holyoke College and lives near the town where Dickinson lived her entire life, Amherst, Massachusetts.