---
product_id: 20838953
title: "Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds Paperback – May 31, 2011"
brand: "lyndall gordon"
price: "€ 29.29"
currency: EUR
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reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.ie/products/20838953-lives-like-loaded-guns-emily-dickinson-and-her-familys-feuds
store_origin: IE
region: Ireland
---

# Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds Paperback – May 31, 2011

**Brand:** lyndall gordon
**Price:** € 29.29
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds Paperback – May 31, 2011 by lyndall gordon
- **How much does it cost?** € 29.29 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ie](https://www.desertcart.ie/products/20838953-lives-like-loaded-guns-emily-dickinson-and-her-familys-feuds)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Wild Nights; Wild Fights.
  

*by R***C on Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2010*

Reading the reviews below reminds me that there are no feuds as acrimonious and petty as academic  ones.  Apparently, a disagreement between Lyndall Gordon and other Dickinson biographers regarding whether Dickinson had epilepsy has inspired those dissenting biographers to trash her book on Amazon.com. Did Gordon have the temerity to disregard their advice?  Well, we'll have none of that; in the interests of scholarship (yeah, sure) we'll make sure that the world knows how right we were, and how wrong she was to ignore our criticism.Now -- the book.  Lyndall Gordon has written a fascinating account of the feud between the Dickinsons and Mabel Loomis Todd, the extramarital lover of Dickinson's brother, that delayed the publication of much of Dickinson's work for over 50 years.  Extending through two generations, and possibly a contributing factor in the deaths of some of the players, the feud began when Dickinson's brother, Austin, embarked on a mid-life, adulterous romance with Todd, the young wife of an Amherst science professor.  As Dickinson's poems and letters lay hidden away in the pages of books, locked trunks, and dust-filled boxes, the protagonists of this extraordinary tale battled for recognition and vindication and -- not incidentally -- to destroy one another's claims to Emily Dickinson's affectionsGordon describes, not merely the feud, but also the way in which the competing narratives spun by the adversaries -- including the putative "editors" of Dickinson's work, her betrayed sister-in-law, Susan and her sister, Lavinia, and the actual editor, Mabel Todd -- misrepresented their own characters and motives, and also those of the poet herself, who had an emotional vitality and network of relationship that belied the myth of the frail recluse of Amherst.  Public attitudes, Gordon demonstrates, played an active role in such dramas, eagerly embracing the myth of the "frail" and emotionally chaste Dickinson and, during a  trial in Amherst in the years after Dickinson's death, thwarting the adulterous Mabel Todd's attempts to have her rights to a portion of Dickinson land validated. Gordon shows that, in life as in literature, there is no "binary right or wrong, guilty or not guilty," (p. 312), and that truth is elusive and must be approached inclusively, taking into account the stories that individuals tell, and often believe, about themselves and one another.Perhaps that is the lesson that those who criticize Gordon's scholarship might learn.  True, Dickinson may not have been an epileptic.  Taking all the factors that Gordon describes into account, however, some sort of seizure disorder might have been included among her ailments.  Certainly, the theory is plausible, and provides readers (including this one) with an additional, intriguing interpretation of Dickinson's poems.  Yet the nature of Dickinson's illness is not what this book is about.  Instead, the book is about the enduring power of art, emotion, and need:  a great poet's work is nearly swallowed up by, but survives, a love that is so powerful that it gives rise to an everlasting hatred -- a hatred so powerful that it creates a perverse kind of art -- narratives -- of its own.As a college instructor and a practicing attorney, I found this work on Dickinson enjoyable on many levels, and give it "five stars."  How ironic that a book about a feud should spark antagonisms that, in their own way, prove the author's points.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Loaded Guns indeed
  

*by R***T on Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2014*

A few years before Emily Dickinson died, her married brother Austin, a character out of Hawthorne, began an adulterous affair with an Amherst College faculty wife many years his junior, Mabel Loomis Todd, who herself would be comfortable in the pages of Edith Wharton. This affair is really the crux of this exciting biography. The affair split apart the Dickinson family in unexpected ways, and the repercussions have shadowed Dickinson, as a poet and as a human being, to this day. This is Lyndall Gordon's story, and she tells it brilliantly. How exciting can a book about a reclusive lady poet be? You have no idea.The first half of the book is a biography of Emily Dickinson, very smartly written. The gauzy veils of eccentricity are pretty much stripped away, and we see a much more nuanced view of the poet. She was stronger than her reputation allows; her isolation seems to be due to epilepsy, hidden away, like "the madwoman in the attic." But Emily Dickinson wasn't crazy. She was one of the two great American 19th century poets (Whitman being the other). Gordon uses with wisdom the poems themselves, gnomic as they are, to cast light on shadowed parts of Dickinson's life, her affections and her lovers, imagined or not.The second half of the book follow's Dicknson's works, manuscripts, and reputation, all distorted by a feud of cosmic proportions between The Mistress and The Wife, their families, their descendants, even scholars taking one side or the other. Both sides told enormous whoppers about the other side, and they each constructed a fake "Emily"  from behind which Emily and her poetry have struggled to emerge.Part of Gordon's genius is to be seen in her portrait of the mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd. In addition to being shockingly open about her sexual desires, she also happened to be a very good editor;: her work on the poems prior to publication made Dickinson publishable. Gordon's portrait of Mabel is as rich as her view of Emily.The book isn't perfect. It is grating to come across Gordon's occasional linguistic infelicities, especially as she is usually a clear and confident writes. There is certainly nothing to be gained by the opinions of Dickinson uttered by such terminal lightweights as Pete Doherty (!) and Joyce Carol Oates.Still, this is a riveting account of an exceptional life. It's a little like "The Aspern Papers, " but the papers survive; or like Lizzie Borden without the ax. Emily Dickinson's poems draw us inwards; they are sharp and aflame. Now we see why. And how.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Highly Recommended!
  

*by A***A on Reviewed in Canada on June 26, 2018*

Fascinating tale of Emily Dickinson and family.  Much of the book is a discussion of how Mabel Loomis Todd insinuated herself into the Dickinson family and became Austin Dickinson's (Emily's brother) mistress.  Emily refused to see her face to face although she sent a few cryptic messages to her.  Following Emily's death, she managed to get her hands on many Dickinson poems by way of Lavinia, Emily's sister and. to this day. editions of the poems are listed as edited by Mabel Todd.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds
- Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press)
- The Life of Emily Dickinson

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*Last updated: 2026-02-23*