Success Is Counted Sweetest

Success Is Counted Sweetest - fact Summary

Composed 1859, Published 1890

This poem was written in 1859 and first appeared posthumously in 1890 in Poems by Emily Dickinson, First Series. Its placement in that inaugural edition shaped early readers’ reception of Dickinson’ terse, paradoxical style and introduced her concentrated lyric voice to a wider audience. Knowing the poem’s 1859 composition and 1890 publication highlights the gap between Dickinson’s private writing life and the later public framing of her work, which affected editorial choices and how themes of desire, defeat, and perspective were presented to Victorian readers.