Fordyce R. Bennett is Professor of English and Chair of the Division of Communication, Language, and Literature at Mount Vernon Nazarene College in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. He has published previously in the American Transcendental Quarterly, Fitgerald-Hemingway Annual, Thoreau Society Bulletin, and Studies in the American Renaissance.

The poems of Emily Dickinson owe much to the King James Bible for story and situation, syntax, symbolism and imagery, inspiration, and much more. Bennett attempts to identify all the verbatim quotes from the Authorized Version of the King James Bible which appear in the three volume Johnson edition of Dickinson's poetry, as well as biblical backgrounds, characters, parallels, ideas, and echoes. Relevant poems are treated sequentially, beginning with the first poem of Johnson's first volume. Cross references to other poems, letters, and prose fragments are provided, as well as to standard reference works of the time. Where relevant, brief explanatory material is added. Interpretation, though unavoidable, has been limited to brief parenthetical and terminal comments only where thought necessary. For easy research, the references to textual and biographical backgrounds have closely followed the primary Dickinson resources. An excellent purchase for college and university libraries and for high schools where Dickinson's poetry is taught.