by Sylvia Plath
Ted’s book, I am sure, will be a best-seller here for poetry books! Magazines like the slick elegant New Yorker are clustering around buying a poem here, a poem there, to be ahead of the others & print one before the book comes out. Everyone who has met him, admires & likes him, and I’m sure that this year will establish him as the brightest young writer in America. I knew instinctively that this would happen the minute I met him and read his work: it only takes lots of typing & work, etc. and presto! he will be famous. We had a very happy time in Northampton, found a lovely spic and span furnished apartment and met my young, very nice supervisor at Smith, a fine fellow who knows all sorts of interesting artists, printers and editors, so we’ll be living and working in the midst of a real cultural colony this year! Ted and I are thriving, but miss you both, and the lovely moors and curlews and great windy days.
Much love,
sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
c. Tuesday 30 July 1957*
TLS, Indiana University
Tuesday afternoon
Dearest mother . . .
Just a note to say that we received your nice letter a short while ago and are so pleased that you had such a good time here with Warren: Ted and I loved every minute of your stay and it was great fun planning for it.
Ted’s bank writes that they are just now getting around to sending his account over (“There was no Newton Wellesley Bank in existence”) and other than that there is no real news. We had a rumbly thunderstorm with lots of heat lightning and some rain last night, but the sun is out now, and it is terribly still and sultry with the mercury up to 90. We haven’t been to the beach these last two days, as I took the laundry down yesterday afternoon with Mrs. Spaulding (two of the dishtowels came back with the same dirt smudges which infuriated me: I’m sure they just run warm water over the stuff) and today I wanted to finish the first draft of a 15 page story* which was irking me: I had to get it down before beginning on something more intriguing. I am once more reading in the evenings: Faulkner* this week, whom I find very difficult, and must get used to. Could you possibly get the Viking Portable Faulkner on your discount and send it down soon? Or bring it when you come? I’ll need it, and would like to read some of his short stories before starting to teach. I’ll settle accounts with you when we come back at the end of August, as I think we’ll need all the cash we have down here now.
Mrs. Spaulding sent over some delicious quahog fritter batter yesterday, so I fried it in mazola and Ted & I found it delectable.
This tropical climate makes me long for the nip of fall weather, even if it means my job upon me. I hope, roughly, that Ted & I can drive up to Northampton with you and Warren on Monday, Sept. 2nd and then you return home while we fix up the house till Friday, return to drive warren to NYC Sunday the 8th, and come back after Ted sees his publishing people etc. by Wednesday or so, stop a night in Wellesley, and head to Northampton in time for me to get in ten days rigorous work before classes begin.
Did you have Forster’s Howard’s End* on your list? Was that the one yet to come?
Let us know all your news. Life here is pretty much of a piece, a very nice piece, and we writing away. Remember to get a clip-board for Ted: a heavy board with a clip (five & ten?) to hold notepaper typing size. Maybe Warren could pick up a fishline to go with the rod, or something.
More later. Meanwhile, Ted joins me in sending much love,
sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 4 August 1957
TLS, Indiana University
Sunday evening
August 4
Dearest mother. . . .
Ted & I are just drying off over hot onion soup after the wildest bike ride yet, about 12 miles or more round trip to Orleans in the drenching rain. Ted’s left ear had been giving him trouble for the past week and although he claimed it was getting better, he winced whenever I touched it & today his face started to swell up with some sort of infection, so we made an appointment with the nearest doctor, in Orleans. We were going to ask the Spauldings to drive us over, but they told us they were going away to their daughters* for the day and so we didn’t even tell them we were going to the doctors for fear they would feel worried about going off. It was only drizzling when we started out, but by the time we had biked against the wind along the back roads for a couple of miles the skies opened up and in spite of slicker & mac we were soaked to the skin by the time we arrived. The doctor said Ted had an abcess & put a kind of wick in his ear and gave him a shot of penicillin as his temperature was over 100. I was naturally very concerned as the bikeride back was like riding up against a mountain stream. The water in low places of the road was actually up to our knees, and thunder cracked over our heads while the rain almost blinded us. There was no sense waiting anywhere because the rain kept up till late evening. I put Ted right to bed after a hot shower and have been feeding him hot drinks. We are to go back again tomorrow morning, so I shall see if Mrs. Spaulding can drive us. I do hope he won’t have to have his ear drained or anything.
We have both been a bit blue this week after your departure and a bunch of rejections and this strenuous biking in face of great odds. We were trying to economise on food this week, and now these doctor bills will probably make a big indentation in our budget. I am using the doctor as a gynocologist so you won’t have to make an appointment with one at home for me. Luckily Ted got a check for $63 this week from the New Yorker for his poem,* the most he’s ever gotten for a single poem yet, so this will help us. I’m sorry I forgot to give you the $10 for the paper and my Borestone Book, but will do so when we come home & I pay for the suit, shirt & belt of Ted’s. Have you got the bill for that yet? Ted just got a letter from his stupid bank, as I perhaps wrote, & they said they are sending his money which should be about $270. The dentist bill was $68 which with my fall treatments will no doubt mount up to $100. I do hope Ted gets a good September check from his book: we’ll need it. He has four published poems and seven others toward his second book* already, very good ones, too.
Tomorrow I hope to do a big marketing---we didn’t buy anything this week but ate up what was in the icebox & I defrosted it, which I guess I should do every week as the ice was about 2 inches thick. Thanks for forwarding all our mail so promptly & for writing: we look so eagerly for your letters. Got a nice note from Peg Cantor who is coming down early this week: hope Ted is well enough to see her & go out. I have just written a letter to the Yale Press asking about my ms. Another company, the World Publishing Co. (an Amherst boy we met in NYC the night we landed is an editor at it) is interested in seeing a book of my poems after reading the July issue of Poetry---do you have it yet? I should be sent a copy. So I’ll try them if Yale falls through.
Much love
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 6 August 1957*
TLS, Indiana University
early tuesday morning
dearest mother . . .
just a note to go in with the copy of this bank statement: perhaps you could take down these signed slips (3 slips in all) with the bankbook and get the total entered. with the change of weather yesterday to clear and crisp our fortunes and moods changed too and we have been having a fine time. the held up mail yesterday brought us news of this welcome $258 addition to our account, a little check for $5 for a poem of mine which must have appeared in the Antioch Review recently and a little check for the English equivalent of over $8 for Ted’s two poems in a July issue of the Spectator, and a nice letter asking him for more poems. I am at last writing my first poem for about 6 months, a more ambitious topic: a short verse dialogue which is supposed to sound just like conversation but is written in strict 7 line stanzas rhyming ababcbc: it frees me from my writer’s cramp and is at last a good subject: a dialogue over a ouija board, which is both dramatic & philosophical.* I really think I would like to write a verse play, now. If I practice enough on getting color into speech, I can write in quite elaborate rh
ymed and alliterative forms without sounding like self-conscious poetry, but rather like conversation. So I am much happier. I mailed my babysitter (or, rather, my mother’s helper)* story to the Ladies’ Home Journal yesterday along with a revised version of my laundromat story: both are very light & frothy as they say, with much funny dialogue, but the mother’s helper story is richer in many ways than the earlier one. I am as yet most pleased, however, about the one I sent off to the SatEvePost just before you came which is the most dramatically tight story I’ve ever written, starting at the peak of a crisis in the morning, with very tightly-knit in flashbacks & four rich characters, even five, and a surprise end climax in the evening. I am really hoping to sell it somewhere as it is a central problem, but not a trite situation. I am now revolving ideas for a Harper’s article (or, rather, article for Harper’s) on student life at cambridge. I hope I can write about 10 witty vivid pages for it. I’d love to get an article in their magazine.
Called Mrs. Cantor at her friends last night as she wrote to, but could get no answer. Will try again this am. . . . Just did try: she’d given me the wrong phone number, which was bothersome. She proposed a picnic, and the afternoon, but since Ted & I didn’t have any picnic-suitable food & didn’t want to waste our time making one, I said we were going to Orleans for the morning, which is true, as Ted has another doctor’s appointment, which I didn’t mention: she’s bringing another little boy along with Billy, so I felt very glad we didn’t sign up for more time. Mrs. Spaulding has been so nice---always bringing over little jars of pickle the tenants leave, or blueberry muffins or fish or corn people give them: she drove us to the doctors again yesterday & Ted got another injection of penicillin: his temperature was down & he feels much better, so we celebrated with a delicious steak & asparagus supper & wine last night & I made a good chocolate cake with French icing. Will write more later,
Love to you & Warrie
xxx Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
c. August 1957*
TLS, Indiana University
Dearest mother,
I’m taking you up on your wonderful offer to type out these poems for me. I’d dreamed of writing twenty more in 2 months to take the place of the folded ones in the back of this batch, with which I’m now unsatisfied, but since this isn’t a book-publishing contest, I’ll probably enclose them.
The ms. should be typed in triplicate---could you do it in regular type, not the little elite? I’d like all poems double-spaced, with my name, Sylvia Plath, in the upper right-hand corner of each page. Don’t number the pages, as I can do that after I decide on the order. Also, ignore my red notations, underlines & magazine names.
I’ll send you a copy of the title page, acknowledgment list etc. when I get the order arranged.
A million thanks,
love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 5 September 1957
TLS with envelope, Indiana University
September 5, 1957
Thursday
Dearest mother . . .
Thanks so much for the letter. I wrote 3 thank-you notes to the people in question the minute I got here so that’s off. Ted & I really love the apartment: everybody we meet asks in tones of amaze: how did you get it? It’s impossible to get apartments here! So we feel wonderfully lucky: it’s so light and airy. It is on a very busy intersection and we continually hear the screak of breaks. Yesterday we witnessed an accident from our window: a screak, and then the crackle of metal and tinkle of glass. A stupid gas station boy turned right into the driver’s seat: of a car coming innocently along route 9, and one man cut his head against the windshield, but noone was hurt seriously. We’ll probably witness worse before the year is out, and I am very very careful.
The last few days have been full of business & things are at last quieting down. We’ve opened a bank checking account, and spent $18 for a very nice kitchen cabinet which I needed desperately to use as a kind of china closet & untensil drawer, with a formica top which I can use as a work area & place for my electric frying pan: the kitchen is now fine. The cabinet is waist height, with two shelves, the drawer, & a top. We really needed it. My pewter set is proudly displayed in the alcove on the stair landing on Marty’s wood tray & looks gorgeous against the dark wood. You will be pleased to know Ted likes the pewter teaset & the stainless steel table ware best of anything we have. The dinner set is lovely too.
We definitely need the big black bookcase sent up. Do keep the shelves & screws very carefully till we come, and we will bring them up with our books & possibly the little writing desk for Ted. The landlady can’t possibly object to the bookcase, and she would be horrified at our using bricks on the floor she has painted by hand which discards its paint on anything rough or rubbing. The bookcase will fit perfectly (I was amazed it is only 4 feet wide---I thought it was at least 6!) It will be less expensive in the long run than carting about 2 new bookcases which we’d have to buy, I think.
I managed to get the College Purchasing office to loan me an old desk for the year & won’t buy one unless we get one by auction, cheap. So with my loaned desk (all my papers are helter-skelter) & the little one for Ted, we should be fitted out.
Ted’s party, praise be, has been postponed till Sunday, October 20, which should be perfect for me, when I’ve the confidence of a few weeks of teaching behind me & can really enjoy it: they’re timing it to coincide with the opening of the Poetry Center* for the year: just fine. Maybe a week or two after that you can come up here. For the weekend: if they’re having anything nice on: eat here & room at some little Inn down the street.
I get homesick for Warren every time I use his lovely Faberware which I love: they pour fine, without spilling a drop, and clean beautifully. I miss him in advance, especially knowing he’s still in America, & wish I could see him again. Give him my best love.
I have been rather disconcerted at the way our $300 is vanishing. We’ll probably have to draw about $150 more out of our bank at home, leaving an even $100 in it, as I’ll have another round of rent to pay Oct. 1 before my first salary check, and want to be ahead in bills, not behind: I mean, wanting to pay the Nov. 1 rent with my October check, & not the back rent: we have to pay promptly on the 1st of the month, & I don’t think I get my check till the first week in Oct. The phone, which will be installed next Wed., will be very expensive: $4 for installation, and $4.68 a month, including tax, for local unlimited calls: a dial phone, which can even dial home or NYC. I hope we won’t have to use it for long distance though, but it is a professional necessity for me, for my students & colleagues to get in touch. They took a $20 deposit which we don’t get back till we leave, another dent. Paid remaining $45 sept. rent & 42.50 agents fee, plus dentist $68 and doctor’s $18, not to mention $30 for food supplies and about $15 for the innumerable minor household needs: from orange squeezer to liquid soap to potholders. Now I am set, bills should decrease rapidly. I hope you don’t mind my going over them, but I’m really the manager of the exchequer & it gives me a sense of accomplishment to discuss my managing with you, as you can suggest economies, etc. We’ll see you Monday:
much much love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 12 September 1957
TLS, Indiana University
Apt. 3 rear
337 Elm Street
Northampton
September 12, 1957
Dearest mother . . .
Just a note to say how nice it was to hear your voice last night, only a few seconds away via our dial phone: I simply dialed your code number(!) 617 and then your own, and there you were. The stupid phone boy connected our phone wrong, so we heard the rings of the other party but they came, chastened, and repaired it this morning, so all is fine.
I wondered if you could dig up the pad for this typewriter? I didn’t take it to the Cape and don’t know where it could be. We need it for quieting it as much as possible.
I’m enclosing a withdrawal order for our bank which I hope you won’t mind signing and taking down when you next go. I needed another witness other than Ted or myself: we just want a check for $150 made out to me, to deposit in our checking account to cover the next month’s rent & our food. If you could also write down a few instructions about the car: like the grease change, the Oct. whatever-it-is we’re supposed to get, I’d appreciate it so much.
We’re moved in at last, and slept till after 10, exhausted from all the lugging of books & furniture downstairs, but the desk is in, & all fits perfectly.
The swelling on the back of my gum is really painful & I wish you would call up that damn dentist & ask his advice about which I should do: I want to try something myself before wasting more money on a doctor or dentist & it is his responsibility. He seems to have built the filling of my back left tooth too far back, or cut a flap of the gum, as it is puffy & swollen & I can’t bite straight, or my upper tooth grazes it and have to hold my mouth askew, with my tongue between which is very annoying. The swelling hasn’t gone down at all either.
Our Xmas vacation begins Friday Dec. 20, so perhaps you could make a dentist appointment for Ted & me on Sat. Dec. 21 or Monday the 24th* or the 26th. We will no doubt have to go back to Northampton & work soon after that to prepare for the 2nd term for which I haven’t as yet got my syllabus & for which I’ll have to do my work during this term.
I’m writing Mary Ellen Chase, hoping to see her sometime soon, for she will no doubt have good practical advice to give me.
I hope you are resting up and eating well. We are happy to be really settled in now, and the apartment is lovely. Tell the dentist my bite doesn’t feel correct, as if the back filling were a lump in the way, or at least ask him what to do about the swollen flap of back skin, which is like this: