The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 122
Sylvia Plath, Frieda holding daffodils, and Nicholas, Court Green, Devon, late April 1962.
Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Frieda Hughes, and Vicky Farrar, sitting on deck chairs, Court Green, Devon, Easter 1962.
Redactions and red biro annotations made by Aurelia Plath on page 2 of SP to ASP, 23 September 1962.
Sylvia Plath’s Letts Royal Office Tablet Diary, 21–27 October 1962.
Redactions and red biro annotations made by Aurelia Plath on page 1 of SP to ASP, 22 November 1962.
Redactions and red biro annotations made by Aurelia Plath on page 2 of SP to ASP, 22 November 1962.
Sylvia Plath’s Letts Royal Office Tablet Diary, 16–22 December 1962.
Sylvia Plath with Nicholas Hughes, Court Green.
Vandalism (removal of SP’s signature) from SP to ASP, 4 February 1963.
Sylvia Plath to Ruth Beuscher, 4 February 1963, Page 1.
Sylvia Plath to Ruth Beuscher, 4 February 1963, Page 2. The letter is postmarked 8 February and, unusually for Plath, ends mid-column on the page.
About the Author and Editors
SYLVIA PLATH (1932–1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright Scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her volume Ariel (1965) secured her reputation, and The Collected Poems (1981), which contains poetry written from 1956 until her death, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Archivist PETER K. STEINBERG has published more than a dozen articles on Sylvia Plath. He wrote the introduction to The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath (2010) and is the coauthor of a book of essays, These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (2017). He maintains the oldest continuously updated website for Plath, A celebration, this is (www.sylviaplath.info), as well as the Sylvia Plath Info Blog (http://sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com).
KAREN V. KUKIL curates the Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath collections at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She also teaches in the Archives Concentration Program and is the editor of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950–1962 (2000). Her exhibitions include “No Other Appetite”: Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and the Blood Jet of Poetry (Grolier Club, New York, 2005) and One Life: Sylvia Plath (National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, 2017).
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Sylvia Plath
poetry
ariel
the colossus
crossing the water
winter trees
collected poems
(edited by Ted Hughes)
selected poems
(edited by Ted Hughes)
ariel: the restored edition
(Foreword by Frieda Hughes)
poems
(chosen by Carol Ann Duffy)
fiction
the bell jar
johnny panic and the bible of dreams
non-fiction
the letters of sylvia plath
Volume 1: 1940–1956
(edited by Peter K. Steinberg & Karen V. Kukil)
letters home: correspondence 1950–1963
(edited by Aurelia Schober Plath)
the journals of sylvia plath
(edited by Karen V. Kukil)
sylvia plath: drawings
(edited by Frieda Hughes)
for children
the bed book
(illustrated by Quentin Blake)
the it-doesn’t-matter suit
(illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner)
collected children’s stories
(illustrated by David Roberts)
Copyright
THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA PLATH VOLUME 2: 1956–1963. Copyright © 2018 by The Estate of Sylvia Plath. Materials published in Letters Home copyright © 2018 by The Estate of Aurelia Plath. Introduction and editorial matter copyright © 2018 Faber & Faber Ltd. Foreword copyright © 2018 Frieda Hughes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Faber & Faber Ltd.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Cover design by Robin Bilardello and Milan Bozic
Cover photograph: Sylvia Plath passport photograph, c. September 1959, courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-274060-1
Version 10152018
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-274058-8
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*Aurelia Schober Plath (1906–94); associate professor, College of Practical Arts and Letters, Boston University, 1942–71; SP’s mother.
*Warren Joseph Plath (1935– ); educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire; A.B. 1957, Harvard College; Fulbright student at the University of Bonn, 1957–8; Ph.D. 1964, Harvard University; SP’s brother.
*Dorothy Schober Benotti (1911–81); SP’s aunt; married Joseph Benotti (1911–96) on 19 April 1941; SP served as flower girl. They lived at 49 Silver Hill Road, Weston, Mass.
*Marion Saunders Freeman (1908–98), lived at 8 Somerset Terrace, Winthrop, Mass. The Freemans were neighbours of the Plath family.
*Dorothea Greenberg Krook-Gilead (1920–89); research fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, and assistant lecturer in English, 1954–8; SP’s supervisor.
*English poet Edward James (‘Ted’) Hughes (1930–98); B.A. 1954, archaeology and anthropology, Pembroke College, Cambridge; SP’s husband, 1956–63.
*Irish poet W. B. Yeats (1865–1939).
*Ted Hughes, ‘The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar’, The Poet’s Voice (14 April 1957); rebroadcast, Recent Verse (16 April 1957).
*According to SP’s calendar, she wrote ‘Sunset after Squall’ on 24 October 1956, ‘On the Plethora of Dryads’ during 24–6 October 1956, and a draft of ‘Vanity Fair’ on 28 October 1956.
*Margaret Kiefer Cantor (1910–2003); married to M. Michael Cantor (1906–2003). During the summer of 1952, SP was a mother’s helper at the Cantors’ summer home on Bay Road, Chatham, Mass., where she took care of their children: Joan (1939– ), Susana (1947– ), and William Michael (1949– ). The Cantors lived at 276 Dorset Road, Waban, Mass.
*See Sylvia Plath, ‘Dialogue Over a Ouija Board’. See also TH to Lucas Myers, 16 November 1956; held by Emory University.
*Ted Hughes, ‘Soliloquy’.
*Probably ‘A Disaster’, Manchester Guardian (1 November 1956): 8.
*British Conservative Party politician (Robert) Anthony Eden (1897–1977); Prime Minister 1955–7.
*English politician and leader of the Labour Party Hugh Gaitskell (1906–63).
*Probably ‘Mr. Gaitskell “Extraordinary Omission”’, Manchester Guardian (1 November 1956): 2.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 1176–7.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 889.
*According to SP’s calendar, she met Dr William L. Gaines.
*Whitstead Hall, 4 Barton Road, Cambridge, was the residence for foreign students attending Newnham College, Cambridge University; SP lived there from October 1955 through early December 1956.
*Irene Victoria Morris (1913–2007); lecturer in German, Newnham College, Cambridge, 1947–66; SP’s tutor while on Fulbright at the University of Cambridge.
*American novelist Olive Higgins Prouty (1882–1974). SP received the Olive Higgins Prouty Scholarship as a student at Smith College. Corresponded with SP 1950–63.
*American writer Mary Ellen Chase (1887–1973); professor of English, Smith College, 1926–55; SP completed English 11 (Freshman English), directed by Chase, 1950–1; SP’s colleague 1957–8; Chase lived at 54 Prospect St, Northampton, Mass.
*Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), 34th president of the United States (1953–61).
*Possibly Peter Howard, ‘The Last Minutes of Freedom’, Manchester Guardian (5 November 1956): 1.
*Probably ‘Wild Scenes at Whitehall’, Manchester Guardian (5 November 1956): 1.
*American politician and presidential candidate Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1900–65). Probably his ‘Text of Stevenson Speech of Welcome to Convention’, New York Times, 22 July 1952, 12.
*Kathleen Marguerite Passmore Burton (1921– ); lecturer in English, Newnham College, Cambridge, 1949–60; director of studies in English, 1952–60; SP’s director of studies and supervisor under whom she studied Tragedy and Practical Criticism.
*Ruth Louisa Cohen (1906–91); Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, 1954–72.
*See Henry Rago to TH, 2 November 1956; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘The Drowned Woman’, Poetry 89 (February 1957): 296–7.
*See Phoebe Lou Adams to TH, 2 November 1956; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘The Hawk in the Storm’, Atlantic Monthly 199 (February 1957): 53; later revised and retitled ‘The Hawk in the Rain’.
*Edith Farrar Hughes (1898–1969) and William Henry Hughes (1894–1981); SP’s mother-and father-in-law; lived at the Beacon, Heptonstall Slack, Yorkshire.
*According to SP’s calendar, she mailed ‘How the Donkey Became’ to the Atlantic Monthly Press on 23 October 1956.
*American poet and editor Henry W. Rago (1915–69).
*Ted Hughes, ‘Wind’, The Nation, 10 November 1956, 408.
*According to SP’s calendar, she sent TH’s poems to Harper’s, Kenyon Review, Nimbus, Paris Review, and Virginia Quarterly on 6 November 1956.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Sketchbook of a Spanish Summer’, Christian Science Monitor, 5 November 1956, 15, with drawings captioned ‘Sardine boats and lights patterned the beach during daylight hours’ and ‘At sunup, the banana stand at the peasant market in Benidorm opened for business’; and 6 November 1956, 19, with drawings captioned ‘Palms and pueblos on the sea cliffs at Benidorm, Spain’ and ‘Arched stairway to Castillo, in Benidorm’.
*Olwyn Marguerite Hughes (1928–2016); SP’s sister-in-law.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Poppy Day at Cambridge’; held by Lilly Library.
*‘Sylvia Plath Wed in England to Mr. Hughes’, The Townsman (20 December 1956): 5.
*G. S. (George Sutherland) Fraser, Poetry Now: An Anthology (London: Faber & Faber, 1956).
*Roy MacGregor-Hastie to TH, 8 November 1956; held by Lilly Library. In the letter, MacGregor-Hastie writes he heard the poem read by Peter Redgrove at the home of G. S. Fraser.
*MacGregor-Hastie wrote ‘Baron Hajdu is organising an armed expedition to assist the guerillas in the mountains there; I would be delighted to put you in touch with him and see you at arms.’
*Elizabeth (‘Betty’) Cannon Aldrich. Wife of C. Duane Aldrich, who lived across the street from the Plaths at 23 Elmwood Road, Wellesley. The Aldriches had nine children: Duane, Peter, Stephen, John, Mark, Elizabeth (‘Libby’), Ann, Amy, and Sarah.
*American author and editor Edward Weeks (1898–1989); editor of Atlantic Monthly, 1938–66.
*According to SP’s calendar, she worked on ‘That Widow Mangada’ during 3–9 August 1956.
*According to SP’s calendar, she finished typing ‘The Black Bull’ on 2 August 1956. An incomplete typescript (pp. 9, 11–12) of the story is held by Emory University.
*According to SP’s calendar, she wrote ‘Afternoon in Hardcastle Crags’ during 7–10 September 1956. Typescript p. 5 held by Emory University; typescript p. 6 held by University of Victoria. Hardcastle Crags is a wooded valley in the Pennines just above Heptonstall.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill: Some Comparisons and Contrasts’, 27 November 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Chaucer: The Most Versatile of Fourteenth Century English Poets’, 7 December 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*According to SP’s calendar, she re-wrote ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’ and wrote ‘Soliloquy of the Solipsist’ and ‘April Rhapsodies’ on 18 November 1956, and wrote ‘Letter to a Purist’, ‘On the Extra’, and ‘Ode to an Onion’ on 19 November 1956, and poems titled ‘Item’ and ‘Megrims’ on 21 November 1956. An incomplete copy of the otherwise lost poem ‘Megrims’ was identified by Peter K. Steinberg in March 2015 on a piece of carbon paper. Clearly readable are the first four lines and last seven lines. An additional lost poem of 22 lines, ‘To a Refractory Santa Claus’, is captured on the carbon paper. Other traces present on the carbon paper are notes from SP’s Government 11 course completed in 1951–2, SP’s poems ‘The Shrike’ (written 3 July 1956) and ‘Natural History’ (written 23 November 1956), and the table of contents and acknowledgements for TH’s book The Hawk in the Rain, which SP typed on 23 November 1956. The carbon paper held by Lilly Library.
*Ted Hughes, ‘Bawdry Embraced’, Poetry 88 (August 1956), 295–7.
*Ted Hughes, ‘The Hag’, The Nation, 18 August 1956, 144.
*American poet Marianne Moore (1887–1972).
*English poet Sir Stephen Harold Spender (1909–95).
*English-born poet Wystan Hugh Auden (1907–73); William Allan Neilson Research Professor, Smith College, 1953.
*Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–53).
*TH taught at the Coleridge Secondary Modern School on Radegund Road, Cambridge.
*Richard DeWeese Baughman (1934– ); B.A. 1955, Amherst College; M.D. 1960, Harvard University.
*‘Sylvia Plath Is Betrothed to Mr. Hughes’, The Townsman (8 November 1956): 4.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Probably Stevens Hall Clarke; B.A. 1958, Harvard; LL.B. 1966, Columbia. Clarke was a guest of the Plaths for Thanksgiving, 1954.
*Wilbury A. Crockett (1913–94); SP’s English teacher at Wellesley High School (formerly Gamaliel Bradford Senior High School), 1947–50; lived at 82 Forest Street, Wellesley, Mass., with his wife Vera M. Crockett, and their children Deborah L. and Stephen Crockett.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Literature Versus Dogma’, 4 December 1956; held by Lilly Library.
*See Robert Hatch to TH, 27 November 1956; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘Roarers In a Ring’, The Nation (22 December 1956): 543.
*American author Emilie Warren McLeod (1926–82); children’s book editor at the Atlantic Monthly Press, 1956–76, associate director, 1976–82.
*Emilie McLeod to Ted Hughes, 28 November 1956; held by L
illy Library.
*See The Journals of Sylvia Plath (London: Faber, 2000), 147–8. According to SP’s calendar, she visited Wilbury Crockett on Saturday, 20 September 1952.