“Natural Magic,” Renée Bergland brings Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin in for reappraisal. Even better, Bergland reappraises them together. Both believed that the enchantment of art and ...

To gratify the aesthetic sense was never Emily Dickinson's desire; she despised the poppy and mandragora of felicitous phrases which lull the spirit to apathy and emphasize art for art's sake.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation website says it all: “In this house, Emily Dickinson changed American ...