In 2021, I published a little Issuu history of a daguerreotype of 16-year-old Emily Dickinson. As of 2023, that image remains the sole fully authenticated photograph of the poet, and my book included an attempt at using artificial intelligence to restore its contrast and detail. The original and the restoration can be found in the book at
But in 2023 I upgraded my computer and its software, and rerunning the restoration now brings back so much more history that separate pages can be seen once again in the book on the photographer’s table. If I still had the Microsoft Word text of my own 2021 book, I’d replace the old image there with the new one and hit Republish. The Word text is long deleted, though, and to change that one page now I’d have to retype the whole book and then hassle with Issuu.
But see the new restoration by itself: a 2023 electronic state of the poet Emily Dickinson in 1847. At the least, more of the fabric in her dress is visible to you now than it was to me in 2021.
But see too: as she explained in advance to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1862; JL268), the only true way to see Emily Dickinson is wordwise: not as an illustration but with the mind’s eye.