by Sylvia Plath
Lots of love to you & Warren
xxx
Sivvy
TO Howard Moss
Wednesday 8 November 1961
TLS (aerogramme), New York Public Library
Court Green, North Tawton
Devonshire, England
November 8, 1961
Mr. Howard Moss
THE NEW YORKER
25 West 43rd Street
New York 36, New York
USA
Dear Mr. Moss:
Thank you very much for your letter of October 27th.* I’m glad to hear you’re taking BLACKBERRYING* for the New Yorker.
I think I have a way out of “face” and “faces”.
How about:
“To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing . . .”*
I like this much better myself, with the minor change in line 7 as well, and hope you think it clarifies the stanza.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Alan Ross
Thursday 9 November 1961
TLS, University of Texas at Austin
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire
November 9, 1961
Dear Alan Ross,
Just a note to say that Ted and I both hope to be able to manage to do something for the Poetry number.
All good wishes from both of us,
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
Alan Ross, Esq.
THE LONDON MAGAZINE
Doric House
22 Charing Cross Road
London W.C.2
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 9 November 1961
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Court Green, North Tawton
Devonshire, England
November 9: Thursday
Dear mother,
I hardly know where to begin. Your good bonus letter came today, and all sorts of nice things have been happening. Ted woke up this morning and said “I dreamed you had won a $25 prize for your story about Johnny Panic”. Well I went downstairs and found out I had won a Saxton grant for $2,000!* I have been waiting for over half a year to hear from them, and as both Ted & I have been rejected by them (Ted because he was published by Harper’s, & they give the grant) and I because I applied for poetry & they don’t like to give money for poetry---I had no hope. Well I applied for a grant for prose this time, & got the amount I asked for (I had it figured so I wouldn’t have to work & could have a nanny & household help, etc.). They pay in quarterly installments, as parts of a project are completed, so I should get my first lot in a week or two! It is an absolute lifesaver. I hadn’t wanted to spend my gift money on carpets right away, because I didn’t know how our expenses & income would work out for the rest of the year, & now, within the next month, I hope to have my study, our bedroom & Frieda’s & the stairs all carpeted, & possibly the livingroom. Amusingly enough, two carpet samples I’d ordered---turkey red for my study & forest green for Frieda’s room---came today! We are members of “Better Buying”* now, an organization that you can buy all the good makes of cars, machines, carpets etc. from with a 15% discount if you pay cash in 7 days after delivery. So I am going to get the best of carpets! Naturally I wish I’d known about Better Buying before, but better late than never. All the guarantees operate as usual.
Life in town has been more & more fun. They had a Hunt Meet in the square yesterday: all the local foxhunters, in red jackets, brass buttons & velvet caps drinking whisky on horseback, all sorts of fascinating faces, & a pack of spotted, sulphurous dogs---a toot of a horn & they galloped off. We took Frieda to watch & she loved it. Oddly moving, in spite of our sympathy for foxes. We went for a long walk with Frieda first thing in the morning it was so lovely---the hedgerows a tapestry of oak leaves, holly, fern, blackberry leaves all intertwined, the green hills dotted with sheep and cows, and the pink plaster farms very antique. Frieda is a great walker, as you know.
Then, today, we had an auction to end auctions in our own town. A 17th century house with a pretty front but ghastly situation down by the river at the town-bottom was auctioned, with all the stuff in it. Warren would have enjoyed this! Ted & I & Frieda went to the “viewing” in the morning & marked down all the stuff we wanted. Then Ted spent the afternoon down there bidding. What we got was just fantastic! It wasn’t the sort of auction to attract dealers (no silver, copper, antiques etc.), so Ted walked away with everything we wanted for next to nothing. 12 cents for a table we’ll paint over, under a dollar for a lovely china “biscuit barrel” with pink cherries and green leaves on it and a wicker handle which I’d have paid piles for, I think it’s quite fine, about 60 cents for a big handsome comfortable upholstered chair with arms & a high scrolled back (the only chair that rest my rear & back, all the rest of ours are hard wood) which I’ll have re-upholstered in black corduroy for my study; an old sewing box, mirrors; a dresser for the guest room for $1. The only “expensive” things were a pile of garden tools Ted got for about $10. We had a wonderful night admiring our stuff & planning to paint this and polish that. The big chair, another nice wood chair for my typing at my desk & the cherry pot and little antique mirror I’m going to reupholster in red are my joys.
Tell Warren the New Yorker just bought a poem of mine I wrote here called “Blackberrying”, about the day we all went blackberrying together down the lane that sloped to the sea and got such a lot. I don’t know when they’ll print “Tulips”---probably in the season! I’ll send for a copy of my awful first ladies’ mag story---very stiff & amateurish. It came out my birthday week; I got a very sweet fan letter for it in which the woman, also a writer, took me for an expert on Canada & Whitby, this sailing port I visited for a day. Very flattering!
Frieda is better & better. She says “hole” (a sophisticated notion Ted taught her) and “nana” for Banana & is picking up words eagerly now. I’ve met a very pretty mother here---no soul mate, but awfully nice. Her name is Sylvia Crawford & she has 3 little girls, the middle one, 2½ years, named Rebecca. Isn’t that odd? Thanks for the bank statement. I thought we weren’t so rich! Dont buy a Britannica, however nice. I really don’t think one uses them that much, & good schools should have them in stock. I’ll send you clippings of our children’s book reviews---the editor is very very pleased. & so are we, with all the lovely books.
xxx
Sivvy
PS – That fox book sounded handsome.
TO Brian Cox
Tuesday 14 November 1961
TLS, University of Kansas
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire
November 14, 1961
Dear Brian,
Thanks for the proofs.* I’m glad the permissions are coming in---I do hope Nemerov’s come, because he is a pivot of the selection, I think. And I do hope that sales continue to rise!
I wasn’t sure if you wanted the proofs back. Let me know. Here are the corrections I’ve made:*
Barbara Guest:* The Brown Studio:
Lower case t in line 6.
Lower case w in 7th line from end.
Comma, not period, after ‘phantom’, 3rd line from end.
Lower case t in 2nd line from end.
Anthony Hecht:* “More Light! More Light!”
Capital A in 4th stanza, 4th line.
W. S. Merwin: The Native:
“So that one beast” (not “best”), stanza 5, line 6.
Anne Sexton: Some Foreign Letters:
“I read how your” (not “you”), stanza 4, line8.
That’s all I could find. Oh dear, I wish Hecht hadn’t changed his line---& shall probably wish the same about Adrienne’s changes. But that’s their godly privilege.*
All best wishes,
Sylvia
TO James Michie
Tuesday 14 November 1961
TL (carbo
n), Smith College
Court Green
North Tawton, Devon.
November 14, 1961
Dear James,
No, I’ve not forgotten about the libel issue. In fact, I’ve thought about little else. I’ve gone through the book with great care and have prepared a list of links of fiction to fact, and a list of minor corrections which should alter most specific factual references.*
Of course you’re right about the name of author and heroine needing to be different. I’ve decided to call the heroine Esther Greenwood, so all references to her and her family should be altered accordingly (pp. 22, 33, 41, 53, 59, 60, 61, 72, 77, 79, 127, 128, 145, 157, 188, 189, 195, 197, 203, 205, 212, 216, 221, 225, 229, 230, 232, 233, 237, 244, 250, 253, 257, 258, 261, 264).*
The whole first half of the book is based on the Mademoiselle College Board Program for Guest Editors. I have changed the number of girls from 20 to 12, and the girls (Doreen, Betsy, Hilda et. al.) are all fictitious. I honestly don’t see that I say anything nasty or defamatory about the magazine (unnamed in the book). The ptomaine poisoning incident takes place at another magazine, fictitious, called Ladies’ Day, a made-up name. The editor Jay Cee (there are dozens of editors on this magazine) is fictitious & the only unfavorable thing about her is that Doreen calls her “ugly as sin”. Surely no present editor who is not beautiful could sue me for this? The opportunities for suing authors as mentioned under libel in my writer’s handbooks seem infinite. For example, I am aware of no “Doctor Gordon” practising as a psychiatrist on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, but how is one ever to find out if there is a Doctor Gordon, as the name is common? Presumably any old Doctor Gordon could sue me for saying he gave a bad shock treatment. Do reassure me on this point!
Next, the “big eastern women’s college” the girl attends is based on Smith, but could be any of half a dozen---Holyoke, Vassar, Bennington, etc. I don’t think I say anything defamatory about the college anyway.
Doctor Gordon (p. 137 and following) is fictitious. Mr. Manzi (p. 36) is fictitious. Irwin (p. 244) is fictitious. These are the only people I can think about who I say unflattering things about. My mother is based on my mother, but what do I say to defame her? She is a dutiful, hard-working woman whose beastly daughter is ungrateful to her. Even if she were a “suing” mother, which she is of course not, I don’t see what she could sue here. If there is anything, let me know.
Buddy Willard is based on a real boy---but I think I have made him indistinguishable from all the blond, blue-eyed boys who have ever gone to Yale. There are millions, and hundreds who become doctors. And who have affairs with people.
The Deer Island Prison* (pp. 161-2) is a real place by its real name. I think I am very nice about it.
The “city hospital” in Boston could be one of several. I don’t think I defame it anyway. The private hospital in the counter (p. 202 and following) is based on the mental hospital in Robert Lowell’s Life Studies (“This is the way day breaks at Bowditch at McLean’s),* but as I don’t name it and as there are lots of other hospitals like it sprinkled over Massachusetts, I think it is unidentifiable. All I say about it is laudatory anyhow.
Jane (I’m changing her name to Joan) is fictitious, and so is her suicide---I mean it isn’t based on a real one. The women at the hospital are all fictitious.
Oh yes, the Amazon hotel in New York (p. 4) is based on a hotel called the Barbizon.* But aren’t I nice about it?
I do hope there are no grave grounds for libel in any of this. There are so few people or institutions that I can be said to “defame” in any way, and the few I criticize I certainly don’t think are recognizable. Do tell me what the lawyer says. I don’t want to get paranoid & think I can’t ever say anything nasty and foul about Mrs. Gleek, for fear thousands of Mrs. Gleeks I don’t know and never knew will rise up and drive me and my babes into the woods.
Here are the minor corrections I want to make:
p. 33: Omit “literary” in “literary editor”.
pp. 41 & 82: Change “Vee Ell” to “Ee Gee, the famous editor”.
p. 42: Omit “dried-up”.
pp. 54 & 82: Change “Plato” to “Socrates”.
pp. 62, 63; 212 & f: Change “Jane” to “Joan” throughout.
p. 90: Change “Latin and mathematics teacher” to “private school teacher”.
p. 66: Omit “Harvard” from “Harvard Medical School”.
p. 94: Change “important history lecture” to “important economics lecture”.
p. 125: Change “Radcliffe” to “Barnard”, and “Harvard” to “Columbia”.
p. 124: Change “Virginia” to “Elaine”, “eight” to “six”, “Victoria” to “Esther”.
p. 130: Change “Virginia” to “Elaine”.
pp. 146, 149, 150: Change “Carling” to “Walton”.
p. 161: Change “Point Shirley” to “The Point”.
p. 191: Change “the city hospital” to “a city hospital”.
p. 226: Change “when there was another Jane in the room” to “when she knew what my name was perfectly well”.
One last, & for me very important point: after much waiting I have at last received this American grant for the novel, which will come in 4 installments, the last, I imagine, arriving about next August. Thus it is imperative that nobody knows I’ve done this till then---I’ll let you know when the last installment arrives. I’ll have to acknowledge the grant on the book jacket, too. This will give me time to write in peace & eat complete meals, a blessing all round, so I rely on you to maintain a large Hush round the book.
Best wishes,
TO Ruth Fainlight
Tuesday 14 November 1961
TLS, Ruth Fainlight
Court Green
North Tawton, Devon.
November 14: Tuesday
Dear Ruth,
It is with some shock I see two weeks have scuttered past. I don’t know what I would have done without you and Alan & those lovely teamashings in London. That beautiful bang-out night on the double-dose of Soneril* (sp?) sent me back to Ted in fine form. As a result of my money collecting sojourn I am going to Exeter this week to survey acres and acres of carpets. I sold some of the ton of mss. I brought to the Curly Fletchers & so feel justified for lugging round all that scrap.*
We now have a wood fire in the livingroom every night and got our One upholstered smashing Victorian chair (in shabby genteel black horsehair)* for 5 bob at an auction in town. So I sit in comfort for the first time in months, padded all about. Life here is very pleasant in spite of absolutely black weather & huge winds. Had a hunt meet the other day in the Square: sulphur-yellow spotted hounds, red jackets, brass buttons, lecherous-faced whipholders drinking whisky neat on horseback. A toot, & they galloped off. The fox was nowhere.
I can’t get Meima Bacha (sp?)* out of my head. I am in my 2nd year of persuading Ted to get a radio that says something beside Bockle bockle bockle.* Both of us send love. We are counting on you coming to us at least by spring. Daffodil-time.
xxx
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 20 November 1961
TLS with envelope, Indiana University
Monday: November 20
Dear mother,
Very nice to get your letter today. Bitter weather has set in, and I am going to London from Exeter on a day-return ticket some day this week to order carpets at that place where I can get a 15% discount on the best makes of carpet. I have already examined carpets at an Exeter store & the red one for my study, the red for the stair & the green for Frieda’s room should present no problem---I’ll get fine quality all-wool. I know plain colors show every spot, but in my study I’ll be in slippers & no one else enters it, and in Frieda’s room the rug will be covered by a little flowered one which will take the wear. The bedroom I’ll try to get a nice floral one. The livingroom is the problem. We may just wait till you come in summer & go to London together looking for a place that sells 2
nd hand Orientals---first hand ones are of course out of reach & I do want something special---figured, of course, and darkish & quite fine. We have an old rug in here to see us through the winter. I do hope I can get the ones I order in by Christmas---it is so bare & cold with just the boards. We are ordering 2 more Pifcos---those little electric heaters, to plant about various strategic rooms.
I am enclosing a New Yorker check for deposit in our Boston bank---for my poem on that day we went blackberrying with Warren. I can afford to add a bit to our American account now I have this grant---the first installment, $520, came this week. Don’t worry about my taking on anything with the Saxton. Just between the two of us (and don’t tell anyone) I figured nothing was so sure to stop me writing as a grant to do a specific project that had to be turned in at the end, with quarterly progress reports---so I finished a batch of stuff* this last year, tied it up in 4 parcels, & have it ready to report on bit by bit as required. Thus I don’t need to write a word, if I don’t feel like it. Of course the grant is supposed to help you do writing, not for writing you’ve done, but I will do what I can and feel like, while my conscience is perfectly free in knowing my assignments are done. Guggenheims, such as Ted had, are much easier---they ask for no reports or work once you get it, you’re perfectly free. Anyhow, I’d never have applied for a Saxton unless I’d gotten something ready---I don’t believe in getting money for something you haven’t done yet, it’s too nervewracking.
Those Stanford-Binet tests* sound very energy-consuming. How many more do you have to do? I hope you sit down to a cup of hot tea afterwards.
It is time for Frieda’s supper & tub. She is getting more & more sweet-tempered now thank goodness---she went through an awfully fussy I-want period. Ted has just finished another children’s broadcast for the radio and this winds up the load of pressing assignments he’s had over his head for the last half year---now he is perfectly free for his own work again. I’m enclosing the reviews* we did for the New Statesman, hoping they’ll amuse you, especially as you mentioned the first of the Elsa books. A nice bookish Christmas package from you arrived today, by the way, which I’m saving to put under our tree. I’m afraid our giving this year will be pretty much limited to cards---and, hopefully, snapshots. Since we’re not going up to Yorkshire either, of course, with the baby so near, we won’t be doing more than cards with them, either.