by Sylvia Plath
Perhaps the happiest evening we’ve spent in ages was Monday night. I had Ann Davidow & her fiance Leo Goodman* for dinner. Remember Ann? She would have been my dearest friend at Smith if she hadn’t left in the middle of freshman year. She & I took up where we left off 10 years ago. She graduated from the U. of Chicago & has had her first children’s book (she’s primarily an artist) accepted by Grosset & Dunlap: Let’s Draw. I have so missed a good American girlfriend. Leo was a wonder: handsome, blond, blue-eyed & Jewish, on a Guggenheim at Cambridge, to be visiting professor at Columbia next year in mathematical statistics, very warm-hearted; that unique combination of the intellectual & loving-lovable Jew. He’d just been visiting his family in Israel & had fascinating & moving stories to tell. He was at Cambridge on a Fulbright in Ted’s time, though they never met. Oddly enough, astrologically, Leo (his middle name means Lion in Hebrew too) is a Leo, as Ted is: a very powerful & successful sign, & Ann, with her birthday on October 26th is practically my Scorpio twin. We all got along marvelously & hope to see more of them before Ann returns to America.
By the way, when you quote Dr. Spock, quote his Index heads, not page or paragraph numbers as we must have different editions. Already my paperback copy is falling apart. Probably it will have disintegrated by her 1st birthday. At what age did I start Lalaing? FR is beginning to make odd little croaks & oofings, but no coo or laugh yet. And no singing. Ted joins me in sending our best love to you & Warren. When is Sappho due for her accouchement? I do hope she has as easy a time as I did. Luck & fortitude in your time of ordeal.
Lots of love,
Sivvy
TO Olwyn Hughes
c. Monday 16 May 1960*
ALS,* Emory University
Monday –
Dear Olwyn:
Ted’s off to his study now, by 9 a.m. I mow the lawn & gather bundles of roses. Frieda Rebecca amazes & delights us more each day: she is now no longer wrapped blindly up in the bleak world of cries, hungers & air bubbles, but gives off dazzling, responsive smiles, recognizes us & seems pleased enough with what she sees, coos, is learning to laugh. I never thought any creature or event could set me bounding out of bed at 5 a.m., but her dawn-smiles are more than worth it.
Our life is as ‘incognito’ as we can make it & increasingly entertaining – an invitation to cocktails with Auden at Fabers (where I love to guzzle champagne) in the mail this morning. Dido Merwin took me to see Olivier in ‘Rhinoceros’ before she left for France – perfectly magnificent in spite of reviews* rating it below Pinter’s ‘Caretaker’,* which Ted & I saw this week: my reaction to Pinter: how much better, profounder, Ted could do it. Also saw a superb Martian-set ‘Antigone’ at the ballet* – tragic, wordless – a ballet of black-cloaked women, a poison-green-clad Creon. London is meat & drink to me in spite of its dirt, & our corner a leafy bower.
Love –
Sylvia
TO Myron Lotz*
Friday 20 May 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1
May 20, 1960
Dear Mike,
Just a brief note saying how good it was to hear from you & that Ted & I look forward to visiting with you again in June when you come to London.
Why don’t you call us a day ahead & then come for spaghetti supper, if you can spare the time. If you can’t, tea is fine. Our phone number is PRImrose 9132.
We’re at present enjoying the proverbial English spring. Halcyon greens, flowers sprouting from people’s ears, the barking of gay seals in the Zoo nextdoor. Just as I write this it starts to pour rain, & the temperature drops ominously.
All the best from both of us. Your trip sounds magnificent & we want to hear more. Ted’s just got a Somerset Maugham award for his first book (the second came out over here this spring & is getting fine reviews) & it specifies 3 months travel abroad within the next two years, so we’ll be forced out of our pleasant domesticity in London to a Riviera villa for a bit.
Until June,
sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 21 May 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Saturday morning: May 21
Dearest mother . . .
What an extravagant grammy you are! The darling two sets of pants & jackets came yesterday & I can’t wait to put the baby in them. As luck would have it, we’ve been undergoing a week of raw, cold rainy weather after a week of sun & blue skies, so I’ll wait till it’s a little warmer. They’ll be ideal for summer. It’s wonderful having a little girl---& such a pretty one: I’ll have such fun dressing her up. Dear Aunt Elizabeth* sent an absolutely exquisite pale blue dress with a little white smock apron over it embroidered with rosebuds. Blue, at this point, is the baby’s color, & I dress her almost always in that lovely blue sweater outfit you sent early on. Her eyes are so blue they send out sparks. I am crossing my fingers they won’t change. She bears a very strong resemblance to Aunt Frieda in coloring & shape of her face, & I imagine her coloring is like daddy’s was, too. She says Ga, & once, staring fascinated at Ted’s picture as I changed her, a triumphant Da. But I suspect that was an accident. Do tell everybody she is Frieda Rebecca. So we can call her by which seems more natural when we address her by names other than The Pooker & Crumb-Bun Pie-face. We may well call her Frieda. How do you like the name Gwyneth for a girl? A Welsh name I discovered & think of as a possible name for a 2nd girl.
Do you know a Lola Walker* or a Lucy & David Webster?* We got a queer invitation to an At Home by the latter who said the former suggested they get in touch with us & are absolutely mystified. I thought these might be Britishers you met in America.
Ted made his second BBC program* this week, a recording of his story “The Rain Horse”, a program which should bring in over $100 or so, with its rebroadcasting payment. Very nice. He has several projects going with them now---possibly a verse play, when he finishes it (he’s doing another now), a poem & talk for high school students with other poets & critics, a long poem, etc. The BBC are the one organisation that pay excellently for poetry---$3 a minute for a reading, something like that. I got $70 for my story in the London magazine out this month, which I’ll send on soon. My tattooist story* should be out in the autumn Sewanee Review. I am itching to get writing again & feel I shall do much better now I have a baby. Our life seems to have broadened & deepened wonderfully with her. Yesterday Faber sent on an envelope jammed with reviews of Ted’s book: excellent without exception, all remarking how much better it is than his first, good though that was etc. I revel in such clippings. He works mornings & afternoons at Merwins study now & things are settling down. I am just crawling out from under the mountain of baby-notifications, thank-you letters & answers to Ted’s voluminous correspondence since his book & Maugham prize: innumerable requests for him to give free poems, free talks, etc. He could waste all his time for nothing. As it is, we have to be very strict. We are giving a reading with another poet in a month, & Ted is reading for a group of medical students at a hospital here who want “contact with the outside world.”
Ann Davidow & Leo Goodman drove us on a day’s trip to Stonehenge a week ago, on Monday. It was an exquisite day & we passed through beautiful country, all the immense chestnut trees in bloom, golden laburnum, rhododendron banking the road like a bower. The baby was angelic: I fed her once in the car on the way & once sitting in a grassy ditch of buttercups the Druids thoughtfully provided just outside the circle of gigantic ominous upright stones. Ann brought a delectable picnic, cold rare roast beef, cheeses, cole slaw, etc. Leo is a friend of David Riesman’s,* the sociologist, & was Riesman’s candidate for head of the Sociology Dept. at Chicago in his mid-twenties. Imagine!
Could you, by the way, send that Library of Congress record* if it’s still wrapped & not too much trouble? This week should be bringing the end to your jammed schedule & I hope you keep in good health & can begin to rest. What are you doing this summer?
<
br /> Mike Lotz writes he is coming to London next month & will drop by to see us. Ironically, I seem to be likely to see more of friends here than in America. London is a perfect stopping-off place. It is heaven to have a 3-year lease here & not to think of moving, not for a good time. We’ve wasted so much time moving in the past years. I only wish our next move could be into our own house. But in order to take out a mortgage evidently one has to have a “regular job”, & my main concern is that Ted doesn’t have to take one. The more he writes the more he’ll earn, but bank officials can’t understand that sort of chanciness I guess. Damn his uncle anyway. He doesn’t even draw a salary anymore for the taxes would be about 90%. & he even was scared to write a reference for Ted when we were about to rent a flat! I wish we could adopt Maugham as uncle. I want to read him all now – hope he survives till October!
xxx
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 30 May 1960
TLS (aerogramme),* Indiana University
Monday: May 30
Dear mother,
Congratulations to Sappho via you about her triplets! Ted & I were delighted with your descriptive letter about her successful confinement & only heartbroken we can’t have one of the kittens if not the mother herself. Do keep us posted on their development. How superb the little black one must be!
I am at my livingroom typing table, and all I can see is one huge tree across the street & lots of sky . . . very green & pleasant. The wife of the successful artist who lives in the Merwins’ lower flats introduced me to Queen Mary’s Rose Garden* today in Regents Park: a little Eden, with a rock-garden island in the middle of a duck pool crammed with ducklings, the lush hybrid roses just beginning. She has a little boy under a year & is a pleasant girl. I hope you won’t give our number or address to any more people we don’t know, because it simply puts us in the position of refusing to go out (it’s too expensive in time & money) & conspicuously not inviting anyone over because if we don’t firmly put our feet down we will become simply a way-station for all sorts of travelers. The baby’s feedings & keeping the house clean & cooking & taking care of Ted’s voluminous mail plus my own have driven me so I care only for carving out hours where I can start on my own writing. We have mercilessly to cut out all but the most necessary engagements. After this month we are not going to give any poetry readings unless we are paid for them, for it is too expensive to hire sitters etc. & we want to see good plays & movies whenever we can. Already we have seen Peter & Jane Davison, the recorder Lee Anderson, Ann Davidow & Leo Goodman, & Myron Lotz is coming on their heels---all but Ann a distraction & expense. This may seem drastic to you, but even a modest fame brings flocks of letters, requests, schoolgirls asking for “the author’s own analysis of the symbols in his stories” etc. ad nauseam. If Ted didn’t have his study he’d be distracted by the phone, the mail, & odd callers so he’d get no work done at all. And as his secretary and my own I have a personal reason for being strict. So please help us by not steering anyone our way.
The little suits you sent fit perfectly, are on the largish size even. So far she had grown out of nothing & still swims in her three nighties, cuffs rolled up, etc. I can’t find anything like Carter’s things here: only stupid cottons that have to be ironed, worn with slips under them. Do you suppose Carter’s has some outlet over here? I wish I could find out. I can hardly keep from playing with the baby all the time, she is so responsive & smiley & pretty. She gets her first injection this Thursday, has her own little card, & will be finished with all by the time she is two. This is a triple threat: whooping cough, diptheria & tetanus. This week I may have energy enough to try her on water & orange juice. She seems to be growing fine on just milk, very satisfied. Ted’s mother & Aunt Hilda are coming on a London tour this weekend & will drop in Saturday & Sunday: the first relatives to see the baby. I am so pleased they are coming.
I have at long last bought a vacuum: for approximately $50.* It is a new model of a Hoover (a good reliable make), a peculiar looking pink & white globe affair with an accordion-pleated extendable vacuum tube, several lengthening cylinders & spare nozzles for upholstery etc. I consider it a new toy: buzz round the house, from carpets to floors, sucking up everything in my path. Feel very happy with it, for previous to this my crude broom-sweeping merely raised & rearranged the accumulating dust & soot. I don’t mind work if it’s followed by results. I’ll leave a space for Ted.
xxxxxxx
Sivvy
TO Philip Booth
Tuesday 31 May 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Dartmouth College
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1, England
May 31, 1960
Dear Philip,
It was wonderful to get your good if chiding letter. I see my mother has informed you well of our very serious little April Fool, who as I write this is just two months new and having her evening yowls. Nights she is divine, but from tea to bedtime she becomes wildly nihilistic & inconsolable. At dawn, she wakes me delicately with cooings tuned beyond Ted’s powers of hearing and rewards my picking her up for nursing with dazzling & dimpled smiles. Oh, she is altogether lovely. Queer, we wanted nothing but a boy & now can’t imagine ever having been such utter asses. Boys, ugh.
Good for “Spit”.* And you didn’t tell us where to look for it! Where? Ted’s second book LUPERCAL is out over here and getting very good reviews indeed. His winning the Somerset Maugham travel award for his first book will take us sumptuously to Europe for a 3-month period some time in the next two years, when the baby is a bit sturdier, immuned to the world’s diseases and so on. Just now it’s wonderful to sit & sit & not move. After a ghastly January searching a filthy cold & expensive & ungodly far-flung London for some flat, some doctor, some something, the Merwins came to our rescue, introduced us to their very fine National Health doctors, loaned us attic furniture & scouted about for flats: that Dido! We are now comfortably at home in a defiantly white-painted (by Ted) livingroom surrounded by Ted’s bookcases, Baskin’s prints, overlooking a green-treed square with Utrillo orangey & cream plaster houses behind, around the corner from the Merwins & a small stone’s throw from Primrose Hill, Regent’s Park complete with Zoo, rose gardens, bird sanctuary (no shags)* & grassy acres. We also have a bedroom, kitchendiningroom, bath & tiny hall on the 3rd floor of a newly converted house. Ted has the use of Bill Merwin’s study while the Merwins are on their farm in France, & I the use of their garden, in return for flower-care, fertilizing & lawn-mowing, which I love. I am becoming an Anglophile, what with U-2’s,* the boom of biological & chemical warfare plants in Maryland, the Chessman execution* & Dick Nixon to keep me beating my head for my homeland. How I wish I could have heard Roethke’s poem on Nixon!* Will it see print? Roethke is one of my most particularly favorite poets & I’ve never heard or met him. Wish he’d come here. We have our compensations. T. S. Eliot’s new wife, very blond & wonderfully warm Yorkshire, invited us to dinner, which we had, intimately, with them & the Stephen Spenders. One of those holy evenings. Ted’s been doing some programs for the BBC, a story of his own---the one published in Harper’s last winter---and an anthology of people’s animal poems, & we hope to see his first children’s book, 8 amusing poems about odd relatives, out over here this winter. Both of us are thriving, doting parents.
Let us keep hearing from you! Ted joins me in sending love to you all –
Sylvia
TO Alan Anderson*
Saturday 11 June 1960
TLS with envelope, Pierpont Morgan Library
3 Chalcot Square
London N.W.1
June 11, 1960
Dear Mr. Anderson,
I’m writing on my own behalf to say how delighted my husband and I were with the proofs of “A Winter Ship”.* I’m sending back the one we like best, with the border round it. We thought we’d like the date, place and press in upright letters, as on the other proof, and my name deleted---as I’ll write that on the inside myself, with
Christmas greeting too.
Would four dozen copies be too much of a burden for you?
Thank you again for making such a lovely leaflet of the poem.
Sincerely yours,
Sylvia Plath
PS* – got a beautiful silver plate baby cup from Pat O’Neil. What’s Betsy Powley’s married name?* Got a letter from her about her baby
TO Aurelia Schober Plath & Warren Plath
Saturday 11 June 1960
TLS, Indiana University
Saturday: June 11
Dearest mother & Warren,
I’m sure I haven’t written for ages. I’ve been going through a rather tired spell, & am just now catching up with rest again. It is now 10:30, my housework is done, & I look forward to a peaceful morning at home reading & writing, since it is a grey rainy day out. Ted’s mother & aunt Hilda came down to London last weekend on a holiday tour via bus, very nice for me, since they stayed at a hotel & had most of their meals on the tour. They came over Saturday evening, and again Sunday afternoon---we went to sit in the Merwins garden---and stayed for dinner. Ted & I used their coming as a spur to finish up the house: I did a spring cleaning, scrubbing all the bookshelves & cupboards etc., and he painted the little hall and one wall of the kitchen a marvelous vermilion, which just picks out the vermilion in the kitchen wall paper & acts on me as a color-tonic. I can hardly stop looking at it, eating it up. I am so influenced by colors & textures. The red looks superb with the black-marbled linoleum, white woodwork & dark green cord curtains. All we need to do now is hang the last of our Baskins. A great admirer of Ted’s, an artist* whom we haven’t met, but who is an extremely amusing & vivid letter writer, is sending him an oil painting sometime next month. I hope it is good enough to hang. I’m very glad Ted attracts artist admirers, a much nicer crew than writers.