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Reading, three ways

Thursday · July 30, 2026 · Emily Dickinson’s eight lines on a book as a ship, Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s painting of a young woman at her reading, and Albrecht Dürer’s engraving of a scholar at his writing table.
I · Poem

There is no Frigate like a Book

Emily Dickinson · c. 1873

The poem is eight lines, printed here as two quatrains of four lines each. It sets a book beside a frigate, a page of poetry beside coursers, which are swift horses, and a book again beside a chariot, and it observes that this way of travelling asks no toll of even the poorest reader.[1] Emily Dickinson wrote it around 1873. It was first published in 1896, ten years after her death, in the third series of her collected Poems, where an editor gave it the title “A Book.”[3]

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –
Emily Dickinson · written c. 1873, published 1896 · Franklin no. 1286
About the maker
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet, born and resident in Amherst, Massachusetts.[2]
She wrote close to 1,800 poems, of which fewer than a dozen appeared in print during her lifetime.[2]
After her death her sister Lavinia found the manuscripts, and a first collection, Poems, was published in 1890.[2]
This poem was collected in the third series of her Poems in 1896, under the editorial title “A Book.”[3]
Sources
  1. Poetry Foundation — “There is no Frigate like a Book” (Franklin no. 1286), poem text.
  2. Poetry Foundation — Emily Dickinson, biography.
  3. Emily Dickinson, Poems, Third Series (1896), where the poem first appeared as “A Book” (Project Gutenberg).
II · Painting

Young Girl Reading

Jean-Honoré Fragonard · c. 1769

A young woman sits in profile, turned to the right, holding a small book open in her raised right hand. She wears a saffron-yellow dress with a white ruff at the throat and cuff, and her hair is drawn back with a ribbon. Behind her the background is bare, and a cushion supports her back at the left edge. The picture is an oil on canvas, 81.1 by 64.8 centimetres, and it belongs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which lists it as open access.[1]

A young woman in a saffron-yellow dress sits in profile, holding a small book open in her raised right hand, against a plain background.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Young Girl Reading, c. 1769. Oil on canvas, 81.1 × 64.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington.[1]
About the maker
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was a French painter of the Rococo period, born in Grasse in the south of France.[2]
He trained under François Boucher and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.[2]
Among his best-known paintings is The Swing of 1767.[2]
This canvas is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, accession number 46303, and is released as an open-access image.[1]
Sources
  1. National Gallery of Art, Washington — Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Young Girl Reading (accession 46303, open access).
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Jean-Honoré Fragonard, biography.
III · Engraving

Saint Jerome in His Study

Albrecht Dürer · 1514

An aged scholar sits writing at a table in a sunlit, wood-panelled study, his head ringed by a halo. A lion and a small dog lie together on the floor in the foreground, a skull rests on the window ledge, and a broad-brimmed cardinal’s hat and a gourd hang from the ceiling and wall. Light pours through the round panes of the leaded windows at the left. The print is an engraving, a design incised into a copper plate and printed in ink, measuring about 24.6 by 18.9 centimetres. Its subject is Saint Jerome, the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin.[1]

An aged, haloed scholar writes at a table in a sunlit panelled study; a lion and a small dog rest on the floor and light falls through round leaded windows.
Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514. Engraving, about 24.6 × 18.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington.[1]
About the maker
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was a German painter and printmaker of the Northern Renaissance, born in Nuremberg.[2]
He is celebrated above all for his engravings and woodcuts, which carried his work across Europe.[2]
Saint Jerome in His Study is one of his three “master engravings,” made alongside Melencolia I in 1514 and Knight, Death and the Devil in 1513.[2]
An impression of the engraving is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, accession number 6642.[1]
Sources
  1. National Gallery of Art, Washington — Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514 (accession 6642, open access).
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Albrecht Dürer, biography.