During her lifetime, Dickinson composed forty manuscript books of poetry, each neatly bound with needle and thread, and safely stored in her drawer. These books came to be known as the "fascicles". The poems found within the fascicles are, for the most part, copies of poems she had written at an earlier date, many of which were originally written on scraps of paper. Therefore, our class assumed that the manuscript poems are the most valid forms of each poem for the very reason that they were final copies written by her. The question raised by the fascicles is whether or not Dickinson meant to have her work published after her death. Were the fascicles made as a form of private publication, or were they made in hopes that some day they would be discovered and understood as works of poetic genius? The question is even harder to answer knowing that Emily instructed her sister to burn the fascicles after she died.

Within our class, five people thought she created the manuscripts primarily as a means of private publication, while four members thought the fascicles were created in hopes that they would be discovered and published after her death. Most people agree that Dickinson chose not to have her poetry published within her lifetime because she did not want to risk possible rejection, and she knew that publishers would not accept her poetry in its unconventional style, with variants and slant rhymes. Thus, publishers would destroy the uniqueness of her work by adjusting it to conform with the accepted standards for poetry.