Emily Dickinson (b. December 10, 1830, d. May 15, 1886) was born in Amherst Massachusetts to a well-connected family. She never married, but stayed with her family to care for her ailing mother, and over her lifetime became increasingly reclusive. In 1858 Dickinson began assembling her collection of nearly 1,800 poems into volumes that her sister Lavinia discovered after her death. Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, only ten poems and a letter were published during her lifetime. Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death. Until Thomas H. Johnson published Dickinson's Complete Poems in 1955, Dickinson's poems were considerably edited and altered from their manuscript versions. Since 1890 Dickinson has remained continuously in print.