The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson is the only one-volume edition containing all Emily Dickinson's poems. The editor, Thomas H. Johnson, has presented the poems in their original texts; and where alternate readings were suggested, he has chosen only those which the poet evidently preferred. His introduction includes a brief explanation of his selection of texts as well as an outline of Emily Dickinson's career.

Mr Johnson, a distinguished Dickinson scholar, is also the editor of the only other complete edition of Emily Dickinson which exists, a three-volume critical text.