Fine Books & Collections: Emily Dickinson, Drama Queen

The typical fate of a television set and its contents post-production is not pretty; cast and crew may select a memento or two, but the scrap heap is the usual destination. Not so for many of the set pieces and paper props from the beloved Apple TV+ series Dickinson (2019–2021). The Houghton Library at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, have acquired many of the pieces that helped transport viewers back to the 1800s. The bulk of the paper materials—scripts, reproductions of poems, letters, and newspapers—went to Cambridge, while costumes and other props will be pressed into service in Amherst after the museum’s major renovation wraps up this summer.