by Sylvia Plath
We could only want it for 2 months, July & August, maybe through Labor Day. But we could go back to Wellesley in early September. Or maybe to wherever we’ll be working, to settle.
If we were on the Cape, you could come down on weekends. If we had a spare room, you or Warren could come stay with us weekends, you see. It would be so wonderful. And those kitchens were so dear & well furnished. I could bake blueberry muffins! We can’t stay in Wellesley, I know ahead of time, because we’d be so put upon having to refuse invitations & being by the phone. We want none of that. We want to be antisocial & write & sun for two months. And of course if we are to teach, there will be the strain of preparing lectures etc.
Perhaps if you mentioned that two writers wanted peace & quiet for the summer, Mrs.? would lower her rent a little? Don’t we have enough for a month’s rent already??? In our little bank. Then there’s only another month’s rent to earn, & food. We’d live very simply.
Do let me know about Warren’s choice of a job. I am so eager to know which among his lovely lucrative possibilities he chooses!
Do think about all this, & let us know what you think. Wellesley, except for about 10 days, is out. It’s too polite & social & over-civilized for us rough island writers. & only the Cape could offer health & beauty with peace to write away from phones, etc.
Write soon. Treat yourself after the dentist, now!
xx
Sivvy
ps. – wish we could see john ciardi’s articles* & all about them – am very interested & have sent off poems from both ted & me – could you possibly clip them from somewhere & send them?
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what is the name of head of Amherst’s eng. dept?
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why is apple pie full of watery sugary fluid?
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what’s your recipe for our lovely bland homemade mayonnaise???
xxx
Sivvy
TO Smith Vocational Office
Sunday 24 February 1957
TLS on Vocational Office postcard, Smith College Archives
Feb. 24, 1957
I should be very interested in a position teaching freshman English on college level in or near New England this coming year---if possible a co-ed college, or near a boy’s prep school or college where my husband could also teach English. (He’s a teacher and published poet).
Sylvia Plath Hughes
55 Eltisley Ave.
Cambridge, ENG
TO John Lehmann*
Tuesday 26 February 1957
TLS, University of Texas at Austin
55 Eltisley Avenue
Cambridge
February 26, 1957
Mr. John Lehmann
Editor
THE LONDON MAGAZINE
31 Egerton Crescent
London S.W.3
Dear Mr. Lehmann:
I am sending along several poems* among which I hope you may find something suitable for publication in The London Magazine.
Within the last few years my poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Mademoiselle, The Nation, Poetry (Chicago) and other magazines.
Thanking you for your time and consideration, I am
Very truly yours,
Sylvia Plath
TO Edith & William Hughes
Wednesday 27 February 1957*
ALS, Family owned
Wednesday morning
Dear Ted’s mother & dad!
Isn’t he wonderful! You know, the telegram came Saturday, exactly a year after our first meeting at the St. Botolph’s party* celebrating Ted’s poems & I knew then – having read his poems even before I met him – in a kind of intuitive vision I saw he could be a great poet – like Yeats, or Dylan Thomas & probably better. On our wedding day, last June, Ted’s first poem was accepted by Poetry – and now, hundreds of typed pages later, his first BOOK! I knew it would come – but hardly dared hope for it so soon.
We await the award letter, with its details (we still don’t know when the book will be published). The contest was put on in all England & America by Harper’s publishing company – an enormous posh company with offices in New York & London.
The judges were not mealy-mouthed little poets (who I honestly believe are scared to publish Ted’s work for fear his brilliance will eclipse their own piddling poems) – nor un-poet editors – but the 3 greatest living poets today! You know, it is very strange, but a good omen, I think, that I have met all 3 judges personally: WH Auden lived & lectured at Smith College (my old Alma Mater) in 1953 & I met him then. Marianne Moore (the most famous American poetess) judged my poems which won at a little contest in America just before I sailed for England (& autographed a book of hers I still have)* & I met Spender at a tea-party at Cambridge last year – all brilliant people, big enough to recognize genius when they see it – & the genius is Ted!
Just picture the scene Saturday morning: we were doing usual things – Ted tying his tie, me heating milk for coffee – when the telegram came. We read it, & stared. And read it again. And again.
Then, at last, the meaning of the news sank in & we began to jump up & down, roaring & skipping like Donkey in Ted’s animal fables, letting out little yips of joy and excitement. All this while, the little telegraph boy stood on the doorstep gaping at us–goggle-eyed–I don’t think he knew whether our hometown had perished in a flood or if we’d just won the pools!
Immediately, then, we called you up in Hebden Bridge & afterwards, I felt I had to call mother up in America, & tell her the wonderful news – so I did. I forgot it was 5 hours earlier there, so woke her up at about 6, a.m. in the dawn hours. But she was so happy for Ted & me she just burst into tears of joy over the ‘phone. And all this time, the milk was boiling merrily to a black crisp on the stove! It was just a cinder when we went out into the kitchen, smoking the house so we tossed out the pot & all & waltzed about.
The prestige & reputation of this – I imagine the book will be published both in England and America – makes up for the fact that poetry books don’t generally earn money. But of course, under the auspices of these grand judges, it may turn into a best seller – we’ll notify the papers.
You should see what an impressive book it is! It is called “The Hawk In the Rain”, after the title of the first poem which was published in the Atlantic Monthly this February. I typed it all up on special paper in November & it is over 50 pages long – very fine – most first poetry books are about only 30 pages.
We hope to get as many of the poems as possible published in magazines before the book comes out. You’ll see it reviewed in all the papers! Just wait!
I am so proud of Teddy & hope some day both of us can give up teaching & studying & devote all our time to our writing. We’ll be seeing you a few days over Easter probably – give our love to Walt,* Vic* & Hilda* (thank Hilda for her sweet letter – we’ll write soon) & lots of love to you both –
SYLVIA
TO Warren Plath
Thursday 28 February 1957
TLS (aerogramme, photocopy), Indiana University
Thursday morning
February 28, 1957
Dearest Warren . . .
By now you must have heard the wonderful news. Ted & I still wait eagerly for the letter---with all its details---to follow up the telegram notifying us about the “Hawk In The Rain” winning Harper’s first publication prize. We have the telegram stuck up on our mirror, or we’d think we dreamed it! What a wonderful family we are! Some day we must all get together---Ted’s brother Gerald & his wife in Australia,* his sister Olwyn in Paris, & Ted, you & me. I really feel there are few people like us in the world: both tall, strong, healthy, & all with special talents, & creative lives.
Mother’s letter about your job offers just astounded Ted & me! We are both so proud. You are obviously destined to be the wealthy one---I never heard of such juicy salaries, & offering to pay graduate school fees, too! I believe you must wa
lk quietly with yourself & think first how you want to develop your gifts & fine combined major, & then you will have the miraculous chance to choose & do just what you want! And how many people in the world today can “earn their living” by living, the way they want most to live! If your work is your “living”, everything else follows. I only hope you can get one of those “valuable for science” positions which will make you exempt from the draft. I don’t like that big 5-year plan with weekly nights, of training. The countries can’t afford to knock off their scientists---oh, poets they can well spare---so many promising young poets lost their lives in the last days of the 1st world war. But now you are experiencing the wonder of being The Scientist in an age where the Scientist is at a premium & can call his own tunes. Bang, Crash! We are really excited about seeing you---less than four months, now! And so proud to have a scientist in the family. We may be famous writers someday,---Ted surely has made a fine beginning---but you see poems just aren’t as negotiable for as cash as test-tube results!
I notice with horror that three huge magazines have failed the last year: all potential markets, alas, for me: the American,* Collier’s* & Woman’s Home Companion!* Didn’t Mrs. Moore write for the American?* Where will she turn her allegiance. Ask Clem* if she is writing on that novel she mentionned when we were last there. I admire her so much & hope she can meet Ted sometime.
This letter is really for you: in answer to your fine one, so share the news with mummy. Our letters crossed, both talking about the chances of Ted & me taking grammy’s place at the Spaulding’s for the summer. I just got mummys letter today. I can’t think of any place I’d rather be---except of course, at Cantor’s in Chatham, right on the beach. But we would really rather write privately in those little woods & I’d know how spic & span & well-stocked the kitchens are---and after living in near squalor here, it would be heaven. Tell mother we’d like to plan 8 weeks, not just 6---we know the money will come from somewhere & both of us should earn something from writing by then. Tell her to talk Mrs. Spaulding into some good arrangement---be indefinite at first---we’re young writers, poor, etc. Then: 8 weeks from Sat. July 6 to Sat. August 31st---perhaps 7 weeks, if we cut back to August 24th---but we’ll want to get to work earlier in July---the 6th & that still gives about 11 days home.
The best thing about this arrangement is that you could drive mother down & stay with us every, or at least every other weekend! It is would be so economical that way! I don’t like to think of mother driving herself, & we’d love to see you every weekend & see summer theater, Provincetown, go deep-sea fishing, etc. My second campaign is to make Ted love America, which only experience can do: writing for him is 1st: So---plenty of time to write during the week. We’d like the quietest, most shaded, secluded cabin---I feel sentimental about grammy’s & would like that most. Then mother could sleep in Grammy’s room & you on the porch. How heavenly it would be. After this stoic year---me having to sacrifice too much time to studies for exams, Ted exhausting himself over his juvenile delinquents, we’ll need utter Rest to write. & also prepare for our teaching jobs in fall---whatever they may be. So: the Cape. The cost will be repaid tenfold by what we produce & the rest & vigor it gives us to face our jobs. & how rich for mother to have you, me & ted for 2 whole months. Let me know the minute you hear about your plans for Germany. I’m so glad we plan to be in New England till you come back. I don’t ever want mother left all alone---we’ll spend Thanksgiving, Xmas & Easter vacations with her, of course. I am so ecstatic about Ted’s book! It is the 1st of many---I always wanted a man to look up to---and now, you will understand, how much easier it will be for me when one of mine gets accepted---having him there 1st. Oh, some day, we dream, we’ll get writing fellowships to Italy---to Rome, in about two years & having nothing to do but write. Our fondest dreams. Now, mother must be starting her teeth operations now---very gruelling & a sore point with her, as with any woman. You can help & relieve me if you give her a treat after the worst times---buy her play tickets, or concert tickets---take her for a driving jaunt to dinner at a country inn instead of making her cook---build up her morale all during it.
Oh, I just live till June 25th! Do write –
xxx
Sivvy
p.s. – Thank mummy for all the university addresses –
xxx
s.
TO Michael Frayn*
Saturday 2 March 1957
TLS, Michael Frayn
55 Eltisley Avenue
March 2, 1957
Dear Michael . . .
Thank you very much for your letter. I thought your comments on the two stories – “Invisible Man” & “Wishing Box” quite just – although I am still regrettably fond of the first – I suppose the elaborate style and whimsy is a kind of safeguard against the impact of the actually ghastly naked situation – which in both cases is a complete annihilation of the creative identity. But perhaps I’ll be able to write that straight out, bang crash, someday, without getting fancy & hedging.
I think it would be fine if you were willing to come look at some poems, etc. over here – and I can guarantee great mugs of coffee. Do plan to come when you won’t be in a fearful rush so we can talk over some of the things. How about either this Friday, March 8, at around 10:30 am – or, if you have classes, Monday, March 11, at the same time. In fact, name your time either of these two mornings & drop me a line saying which is best.
I hope you can discover the flat all right – Eltisley Ave. is right on the way to sludgy Granchester Meadows; the house, on the right, looks nightmarishly exactly like all the rest, except that is has a small, tortuously withered tree by the front hedge –
Looking forward to seeing you –
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 7 March 1957
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Thursday, March 7, 1957
Dearest mother . . .
Well, each day I have said: “If I just wait one more day with a letter, then the letter from the Poetry Center will have come, & I can quote it to mother.” Almost 2 weeks have passed & no letter yet. I suppose it will be a detailed thing, with all sorts of practical matters in it about publication date, etc. but we live in a kind of suspension, under the bright light of the telegram which is stuck in a place of honor over our livingroom mirror next to the dear wood-shaving angel you sent at Christmas, which we believe brings us luck. I’ll let you know as soon a I do about the news.
The most blissful thing is your two letters about the Spaulding’s cape cottage. You don’t know the change that’s come over Ted & me, just dreaming of it. For us, it’s the most magnificent present in the world: a Time and a Place to Write! And the Cape is my favorite place in the world. Just the vision of that little spic-and-span kitchen with the icebox & stove & the sun streaming in, sustains me through the grim plodding of studying masses for exams. And to have a place I know will be such a rest. It is really exhausting to “discover” a new town---shops, quiet nooks, etc. And I think the 7 weeks on the Cape will be the best start on my secret campaign to make Ted fall in love with America---he is getting really excited & glad about it now, and I, vicariously, am more than doubly glad to go back and open up its treasure chests to him. He loves to fish, so maybe you & I can accompany him & Warren deep-sea fishing some weekend. We’d love a party on June 29th & should be marvelously rested from the boat trip. My exams finish about June 1st, so I’ll have leisure to pack while Ted goes on teaching right up to sailing date.
By dint of much typing, I manage to keep 20 manuscripts out continuously from both of us. There was a dead lull for a week after the telegram: Ted & I both had miserable colds last weekend, he having to miss a day of school & me a day of class: the Corizin pills just covered his cold & kept him from the miserable sneezy stage, but when I came down with my cold, as I do, immediately after nursing him through his, there were none left, so I gritted on doping myself with
Empirin. We’d really appreciate another little bottle of those anti-cold pills if you wouldn’t mind sending them. We have plenty of vitamins to last us till we get home.
Amusingly, after Ted & me saying: “Well, the answers to our mss have to come someday” & envisioning the Post Office hiring a truck to bring us the accumulation of tardy mail, I opened the door this week & saw the postman a picture more complete than my wild dreams: there he stood, laden with an armful of packets & envelopes---about 10 or 12 in all. Your marvelous letters about the Cape among them. Along with the routine rejections, Ted got 2 poems accepted by Accent* & me one accepted by The Antioch Review*---both small academic reviews, nothing like the Atlantic, but more readers, & a new name for each of us on our acknowledgements list.
Miraculously, with the publication of a sumptuous new Cambridge-Oxford magazine (which contained 2 of my poems right after an article by Stephen Spender* – on request from the editor), our fame has spread around Cambridge, among the students. Editors of Granta, the Cambridge “New Yorker”, have humbly asked both Ted & me for stuff. I came home after my classes late yesterday afternoon & found a very sweet boy talking to Ted---editor for one of the spring issues:* I made coffee & gave them a piece of orange chiffon pie & we had a good talk. Ted is much more modest than I about his work, so I act as his agent. The next issue of Gemini (the new magazine) in May will carry 3 poems by Ted,* & a story and book-review by me. & I think Granta may well produce us both:* we do love to appear together. & at Cambridge, the undergraduate magazines are read in London by the editors---there are so few university writers---whereas in America, undergrad publications are legion & ignored by higher-ups. I’ve convinced Ted that his book will sell better if people get to read & hear & like his poems first---he is difficult & strong & overpowering & needs to be read much. So he should publish everywhere he can. I have another little editor coming tomorrow---really a nice fellow, very brilliant, who went to Moscow this year on a student-visit, who translates Russian short stories, etc. Shall try another apful Kuchen. I love giving hospitality to intelligent people. I am so happy we’ll be staying with you till July 13th. I want you to give me a constant cooking course---so I can see & make all our family recipes---strawberry chiffon pie, roast ham, chicken, etc. Ted is a most appreciative & heart-warming consumer of everything I make.