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Emily Dickinson
Played by: Hailee Steinfeld
The series focuses on the real life Emily Dickinson in her 20s.- Accidental Misnaming: Ithamar Conkey calls her "Evalina" several times.
- Daddy's Girl: A complicated version of this, since she's at odds with her father frequently in season 1 and again at the end of season 3. Still, she is shown to definitely be her father's favorite.
- Aesop Amnesia: Seems to go through this through both seasons 2 with fame and again in season 3 with her feelings for Sue.
- Drama Queen: From pulling herself across the floor moaning in agony because she got her period to refusing to come downstairs to see Colonel Higginson, our girl is a little dramatic.
- Broken Pedestal: Has this moment with her father in season 3, after finding out he is leaving everything to Austin in his will, despite her being the only one who has stuck by him all season.
- Easily Forgiven: After lying to Sue and telling her that she's dying to get her to come home, when she was just upset Sue wasn't writing her. This is especially cruel, since Sue's entire family is dead.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Admit it, none of us care that Sue is married, to Emily's brother no less. We still root for Emisue.
- Historical Beauty Update: Emily is described both by herself and Colonel Higginson as plain, while Hailee Steinfeld is anything but.
- Born in the Wrong Century: Emily literally says this in season 3
- The Future Is Shocking: Emily finds out that by keeping her private life private, all she's done is allow people to speculate and make up one for her.
- Honor Thy Abuser: Emily with Edward in season 3.
- Comingof Age Story: The series progresses throughout Emily's twenties.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: Emily and Austin make up at the end of season 3 after being on opposite sides for the whole season.
- Age-Gap Romance: We don't know how much older Ben is, but due to actor Matt Lauria being 14 years older than Hailee Steinfeld, it comes across this way.
- Age Lift: No one's ages are explicitly stated, but season 2 was set in 1859, when real life Emily Dickinson would have been 28-29, but Austin states that he and Jane are in their mid-twenties. She would have been 31-32 in season 3, but Lavinia states in the beginning that they are "in their twenties" still.
- Old Maid: Emily is portrayed as one in season 3, though she is likely only in her late twenties.
- Ambiguously Bi: Although Sue is the only woman she is seen to be attracted to.
- Angry Collar Grab: Emily takes this a step further and grabs Sue by the throat in season 2, with added Berserker Tears
- This Means War!: Emily and Austin in season 3.
- Love Confessor: Emily confesses that she loves Sue to Walt Whitman, Lavinia, and Austin in season 3. All instances are within fantasy.
- Disobeyed Orders, Not Punished: In season 1, Edward is furious with Emily for being published in a college newspaper, and again later even though she is published under Austin's name. Then in season 2, he does not seem to care at all when she's published in the Springfield Republican.
- Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Emily in season 1
- Afraid to Hold the Baby: Emily tells Sue that she's afraid she'll drop her baby in season 3.
- Bisexual Love Triangle: Emily is in one of these with Sue and Austin, Sue and Ben, then Sue and Sam.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Emily has dark hair, unlike her real life counterpart, who was a redhead.
- The Shut-In: Emily moves closer to this throughout the series.
- The Freakshow: Emily imagines being this in season 1.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Emily and Sue at the opera, though it is imagined. Then again in the season 2 finale, this time for real.
Sue Gilbert Dickinson
Played by: Ella Hunt
Emily's best friend and love interest. Eventually marries Emily's brother Austin.- Adaptational Backstory Change: The series begins with the recent death of Sue's sister Mary. The rest of her family is already dead. In history, Sue did have a sister named Mary who died before she met the Dickinson family, and so did her parents. But she also had two older brothers and two other older sisters who all should have been alive at the beginning of the series.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In season 1, Sue tells Emily that she's been to Geneva, New York because her aunt used to live there. In season 2, she says that she grew up with Sam Bowles' wife Mary in Geneva.
- Resentful Guardian: With Anna and Clara Newman in season 2.
- Ambiguously Bi: Maybe less so than Emily, because she says that she only slept with Sam as a means of running away from her feelings for Emily.
- Anguished Declarationof Love: To Emily in season 2 after learning Emily knows about her affair with Sam.
- Socialite: In season 2
- Convenient Miscarriage: Between seasons 1 and 2.
- What If the Baby Is Like Me: She tells Austin she hopes their son doesn't inherit his bad traits.
- Amicable Exes: A bit of a twist on this because they stay married, but Sue and Austin come to an understanding by the end of the series to make their family work despite their not loving each other.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Her whole family is dead and she's inherited a debt she can never repay.
- Opening Narration: Each season begins with her narrating the real Emily Dickinson's life at the time the season is supposed to be taking place over a slide show of photos of the real life counterparts of the characters.
- Big Entrance: The first time we actually see her is mid-orgasm while Austin performs oral sex on her in a barn.
- Rags to Riches
- Social Climber: In season 2
Austin Dickinson
Played by: Adrian Blake Enscoe
Emily's older brother.- Historical Villain Downgrade: Maybe not a villain, but the real life Austin did some pretty terrible things and was known to be very serious and self-important. He is portrayed in the series as much more sympathetic and kind.
- Adoptive Peer Parent: He adopts his teenaged cousins in season 2, the same season he states that he and Jane are in their "mid-twenties"
- Tooka Level In Cynic: He takes one of these after season 2 and returns to season 3 as a bitter betty with a Hair-Trigger Temper.
- Calling the Old Man Out: He does this several times in season 3.
- Nature Tinkling: In season 3, he is drunkenly doing this when Emily tells him that Sue has given birth.
- The Alcoholic: In season 3
Lavinia Dickinson
Played by: Anna Baryshnikov
Emily's younger sister.- Harp of Femininity: She plays this in season 1
- Out of Time, Out of Mind: In season 3, she and Emily travel to the future, speak to Sylvia Plath, and she learns that Emily is in love with Sue. When they go back to their time, Lavinia has no memory of this, leading us to believe the entire thing was in Emily's imagination.
- Regal Ringlets: In season 1
- Cain and Abel and Seth: In season 1, when he is saying goodbye to the siblings, Edward calls her "other child". In season 3, when she goes to an asylum with her parents and Emily, Edward cannot remember her name at all.
- Appearance Angst: She is upset about being too skinny in season 1
- Crazy Cat Lady: She has so many.
