Capps, Jack L., Emily Dickinson's Reading: 1836-1886, Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1966.

This meticulously researched book examines Dickinson's career from the point of view of what she read and what the author concludes she would have read, ranging from the King James Version of the Bible to the important topics in contemporary newspapers.

Diehl, Joanne Feit, Dickinson and the Romantic Imagination, Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1981.

A solid interpretation of Dickinson's thought in terms of Romanticism.

Ford, Thomas W., Heaven Beguiles the Tired: Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson, University, AL: University ofAlabama Press, 1966.

Surprisingly, this poem is not included in Ford's study about the ways in which Dickinson's poems display her feelings about death; it nonetheless provides a good background understanding of how she approached the subject in general.

Johnson, Greg, Emily Dickinson: Perception and the Poet's Quest, University, AL: University ofAlabama Press...