Emily Dickinson was born in 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but only for one year. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in Congress for one term. Her brother, Austin, who attended law school and became an attorney, lived next door with his wife, Susan Gilbert. Dickinson’s younger sister, Lavinia, also lived at home, and she and Austin were intellectual companions for Dickinson during her lifetime. Dickinson is thought to be bisexual, and there are many who believ she was having an affair with her brothers wife Susan. Upon her death, Dickinson’s family discovered forty handbound volumes of nearly 1,800 poems.