Fulfilling Hans’s wish

Hans had left to me his literary estate and so it was obvious that I considered it my duty to do everything in my power, within the scope of my means, to ensure him, posthumously, his due place in literature.

After several vain contacts with publishers in America and Europe it dawned on me that the great number of poems that Hans had analyzed and “translated” or interpreted and the extraordinary character of the subject were calling for a different approach. I felt that if I knew which were the twenty or thirty most famous Dickinson poems, I could possibly arouse the interest of some people in America. At that time I did not even know of the existence of the Emily Dickinson International Society, or any other for that matter. So I posted a question to that effect on the Internet and by chance came into contact with Margaret Freeman.

During two visits to Europe on other assignments she came to my home twice and looked through Hans’s material. I was glad she agreed to help me in making public this story and in August 1999 we jointly presented a paper on Emily Dickinson’s Double Language at the EDIS Conference at Mount Holyoke College.

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