Higginson, the good-for-nothing
Today is the birthday of Thomas Higginson, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1823), whom we know today as the publisher of Emily Dickinson's poetry. He received a letter from Dickinson in the spring of 1862 with four of her poems asking "Mr. Higginson... Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?" He read the poems, but he did not know what to make of them. After her death, he helped edit and publish her poetry, re-writing many of her verses, and making them more acceptable for society. Later, scholars would spend years undoing his changes.