by Sylvia Plath
*Sylvia Plath, journal entry dated 25 February 1956. SP slightly misquotes her journal, which reads, ‘And I have learned something from E. Lucas Meyers although he does not know me and will never know I’ve learned it.’ See Karen V. Kukil (ed.), The Journals of Sylvia Plath (London: Faber & Faber, 2000): 207.
*Robert Gorham Davis to SP, undated; held by Lilly Library. Copy held by Smith College Archives.
*Benjamin Fletcher Wright (1900–76); president of Smith College, 1949–59; lived at 8 Paradise Road, Northampton, Mass.
*‘Faculty Headlines’, Smith Alumnae Quarterly (February 1957): 100. The article is slightly misquoted, it reads ‘add to our sum of knowledge’ and where SP writes ‘plodder’, the article says ‘capable routiners’.
*Angna Enters (1897–1989) was a dancer, writer, mime, and painter. Enters performed ‘The Queen of Mime’ on Thursday 7 March 1957 at the Dana Hall School, Wellesley, Mass.
*Albert Pierpont Madeira (1911–64) and Beatrice vom Baur Madeira. Madeira was instructor in English, Smith College, 1948–51; taught SP’s section of English 11, 1950–1.
*SP’s ‘The Fabulous Roommate’ and ‘The Laundromat Affair’. Emory University holds an incomplete copy of ‘The Laundromat Affair’ (pp. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9). According to SP’s calendar, she got the idea for ‘The Fabulous Roommate’ on 10 August 1956.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP’s letter is at the end of a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed.
*John Bleibtreu to TH, 11 March 1957; held by Emory University.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘“Damn Braces. Bless Relaxes”. Blake and Lawrence: A Brief Comparison and Contrast’, 14 March 1957; held by Lilly Library.
*English poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827).
*The carbon is no longer with the letter.
*German writer Thomas Mann (1875–1955).
*American poet William Carlos Williams (1883–1963).
*Marianne Moore, ‘The Dial: A Retrospect’, Predelictions (New York: Viking Press, 1955): 107–8. SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*Alfred Young Fisher (1902–70); English professor, Smith College, 1937–67; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. SP completed a special study in poetry writing with Fisher, 1954–5. Alfred Young Fisher to SP, 10 March 1957; held by Lilly Library.
*Before SP left for England, she met the editor and literary agent Constance Smith Whitman (1905–93). Smith was employed for a time with Harold Ober Associates before beginning her own agency, Constance Smith Associates, in the 1950s.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was Anthony Whitman.
*Mary Ellen Chase to SP, 15 March 1957; held by Lilly Library.
*SP quotes from the following poems in Trypanis’ Stones of Troy: ‘Venetian Mirrors’, ‘Tutankhamun’, ‘Necrophilia’, ‘Venetian Mirrors’, and ‘The Games’: 36, 34, 24, 36, and 25.
*American poet and editor Karl Shapiro (1913–2000).
*American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911–79).
*American poet, writer, critic, and publisher Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965).
*American poet Wallace Stevens (1879–1955).
*English drama critic and author Harold Hobson (1904–92).
*Harold Hobson, ‘A Good Home’, The Sunday Times (17 March 1957): 19.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 924–6.
*Elizabeth Lawrence to TH, 15 March 1957; held by Emory University.
*John Bleibtreu was Chairman of the Poetry Center of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association (YM-YWHA), which is now usually called the 92nd Street Y, located at 1395 Lexington Avenue, New York.
*SP’s scrapbook of TH clippings held by Emory University.
*See Henry Rago to TH, 15 March 1957; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘The Casualty’, ‘The Ancient Heroes and the Pilot’ [‘The Ancient Heroes and the Bomber Pilot’], ‘The Jaguar’, and ‘The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar’, Poetry 90 (August 1957): 279–83.
*Dr Melvin H. Gulbrandsen (1920–91).
*Irish poet and playwright Louis MacNeice (1907–63).
*Frank Raymond Leavis (1895–1978); lecturer, Downing College, Cambridge University.
*Pen name of British writer Mary Ann Evans (1819–80).
*Richard Wilbur won the National Book Award for his Things of This World (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956) which included a $1,000 cash prize.
*English writer Virginia Woolf (1882–1941). Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary (London: Hogarth Press, 1954); SP’s copy held by Emory University.
*Warren J. Plath, ‘The Relative Frequency of English Consonantal Patterns’, thesis (A.B., Honors), Harvard University, 1957.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 854.
*‘offered me lunch for a free lunch’ appears in the original.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Snowman on the Moor’, ‘Sow’, ‘Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats’, and ‘On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad’, Poetry 90 (July 1957): 229–36.
*Ella Mason was a neighbour of the Freemans at 7 Somerset Terrace, Winthrop, Mass.
*Anita Krook Jackson.
*The Ted Hughes papers at Emory include many photographs, some loose and some pasted into a scrapbook, with annotations made by SP.
*Date suggested by a reader’s report form dated 5 April 1957.
*In SP’s address book she has written Daniel Curley in her entry for Accent. Daniel Curley (1918–88).
*A note written in an unidentified hand in the Accent records indicates that ‘Recantation’ and ‘Tinker Jack and the Tidy Wives’ were accepted on 23 April 1957. The other poems submitted are unknown at this time. ‘Recantation’ and ‘Tinker Jack and the Tidy Wives’, Accent 17 (Autumn 1957): 247–8.
*Gertrude Boatwright Claytor (1890?–1973).
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 907–9.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Aubade’ [‘April Aubade’] and ‘Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea’, Best Poems of 1955 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1957): 111–12; SP’s copy held by Lilly Library.
*Probably Scottish novelist and physician A. J. Cronin (1896–1981).
*Olive Higgins Prouty to SP, 29 March 1957; held by Lilly Library.
*William Bunnell Norton (1905–90) and Mildred Smith Norton (1905–2001). The Nortons lived at 47 Cypress Road, Wellesley Hills, Mass., and were friends of ASP.
*French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–67).
*French writer Marie-Henri Beyle, known by his pen name Stendhal (1783–1842).
*Six lines of text in the first column of SP’s letter was damaged, probably when the letter was opened. The text appearing in < > is supplied by the editors based on the remaining evidence.
*A reference to George Axelrod’s play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955) starring Jayne Mansfield, Walter Matthau, and Orson Bean. Made into a 1957 film.
*Thomas Russell Moro (1932–2008); B.A. 1953, Amherst College.
*Tennessee WIlliams’s Camino Real opened at the Phoenix Theatre, London, on 8 April 1957. A photograph of stars Diana Wynyard and Harry Andrews was printed in ‘Phoenix Theatre’, The Times, 9 April 1957: 3.
*Joanna Barnes (1934– ); B.A. 1956, English, Smith College. Barnes has appeared in numerous television shows and films.
*Probably Peter Davison; the Atlantic Monthly published poems by SP and TH in back-toback issues in January and February 1957.
*Eden was hospitalized in Boston, for a gall bladder condition. See ‘Another Operation for Sir Anthony?’, Manchester Guardian (9 April 1957): 11.
*Monroe Spears to SP, 28 March 1957; held by The University of the South. The letter reads, in part, ‘Both of them seem to me, frankly, to rely a little too much on the gimmick. But I think they show a spectacular talent, and I hope that you will let me see your future work.’
*See John Lehmann to TH, 12 April 1957; held by Emory University. Ted Hughes, ‘Famous Poet’, London Magazine 4 (September 1957): 23.
*See Jo
hn Lehmann to SP, 12 April 1957; (photocopy) held by Smith College. Sylvia Plath, ‘Spinster’ and ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’, London Magazine 5 (June 1958): 46–8.
*The photograph is no longer with the letter.
*Donald Robert Paul Roche (1928–2007); instructor of English, Smith College, 1956–8; SP’s colleague, 1957–8; married to Clarissa Tanner Roche (1931–2004); divorced 1983. Mother of Pandora, Martin, Vanessa, and Cordelia. Paul Roche was hired as an instructor at Smith College through the connections of Clarissa Roche’s aunt Virginia Traphagen (1904–68); B.A. 1926, Smith College.
*David C. Freeman (1932–2007), Ruth Geissler’s brother.
*Dorrit Licht Hildebrandt Colf (1934– ); B.A. 1955, music, Smith College; SP’s friend. SP attended Licht’s wedding at the First Presbyterian Church, Mount Vernon, New York, to Frederick Dean Hildebrandt (1933–2010) on 26 March 1955 (divorced); married Howard D. Colf on 14 June 1965.
*In the letter, Gordon’s name is struck through in an unknown hand.
*Patricia O’Neil Pratson (1932– ); B.A. 1954, English, Smith College; SP’s friend from Wellesley.
*Alison Vera Smith (1933–97); SP’s friend and Smith classmate from New York City. In June 1952, Alison Smith withdrew from Smith College to attend Johns Hopkins University.
*Louise Giesey White (1932– ); B.A. 1954, government, Smith College. Resident of Hopkins B House. Classmate of SP in high school in Wellesley, class of 1950. Edward Allen White (1932– ); schoolmate of SP’s in Wellesley, class of 1949. Giesey and White married on 25 June 1954.
*Either Ruth C. McGowan and Robert G. McGowan, who lived at 4 Ingersoll Road, Wellesley, or Edith A. McGowan and Robert McGowan of 27 Elmwood Road, Wellesley.
*Grace E. Pulling and Richard A. Pulling, who lived at 19 Pine Plain Road, Wellesley; parents of David and Lynda.
*Dorinda Pell Cruickshank and William H. Cruickshank lived next door to the Plath family at 24 Elmwood Road, Wellesley, with their four children: Dorinda, Pell, Blair, and Cara.
*Schmidt’s, a German restaurant, at 33–43 Charlotte Street, London, according to SP’s address book.
*The Lost Continent (1951) played at the Academy Cinema, Oxford Street, London.
*Christopher Rene Levenson (1934– ), British; B.A. 1957, English and modern languages, Downing College, Cambridge; dated SP, 1955–6. Levenson was an editor of the Cambridge magazine Delta.
*Indian writer and poet Dom Moraes (1938–2004).
*BBC producer in the Talks Department, D. S. Carne-Ross (1921–2010).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*ASP may have visited the Rembrandt House Museum when she was in Amsterdam in July 1956.
*An American government contractor with plants located in Alexandria, Virginia, and Cambridge, Mass.
*German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955).
*See SP’s ‘Watching the Water-Voles’; held by the Lilly Library.
*On a notecard of ‘The Designer Craftsmen’, 10 King’s Parade, Cambridge.
*French tragedian Pierre Corneille (1606–84).
*French dramatist Jean Racine (1639–99).
*Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906).
*Swedish playwright August Strindberg (1849–1912).
*English Jacobean playwright John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1634).
*English playwright Christopher Marlowe (c. 1564–93).
*English dramatist Cyril Tourneur (d. 1626).
*South African poet Roy Campbell (1901–57) died in a car accident in Portugal; the poem may not be extant.
*A suburban, regional and commuter rail station in Westwood, Mass. In chapter 10 of SP’s The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood alights at ‘ROOT WAN TWENNY ATE!’ where ‘the motherly breath of the suburbs enfolded’ her (Heinemann [1963]: 119).
*See letters from Donald Snyder of the Atlantic Monthly to SP and to TH, 13 February 1957; held by the Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP’s letter is at the end of a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*English satirist and writer William Donaldson (1935–2005) and British playwright Julian Mitchell (1935– ). At the time, Donaldson was at Cambridge and Mitchell at Oxford.
*The two adverts read: ‘SMITH-CORONA Portable typewriter, good condition. 15 gns. – 55, Eltisley Avenue, after 7p.m.’, Cambridge Daily News (27 April 1957): 15, and ‘SMITH Corona Portable, good condition, 15 guineas. 55, Eltisley Avenue, after 7p.m.’, Varsity, (4 May 1957): 4. Seven items below the Varsity advertisement was a notice for the current Granta issue listing both SP and TH among the contributions. SP most likely had a Smith-Corona Silent model which is visible in a photograph of her desk in Lawrence House, Smith College, taken in c. April 1955; see Smith College scrapbook, p. 71; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*See Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 1, 928. According to SP’s calendar, she received the reward on 20 May 1955.
*Smith College holds a typescript of ‘The Smoky Blue Piano’ with a 55 Eltisley Avenue, Cambridge address. Additional typescript copies are held by the Rose Library at Emory and the Lilly Library.
*A tunnel under Boston Harbor which connects East Boston to Boston. At the time of this letter, traffic travelled both ways in the tunnel.
*Charles Monteith to TH, 9 May 1957; held by Emory University.
*Richard Wilbur, Poems: 1943–1956 (London: Faber & Faber, 1957). SP’s copy is held by Smith College.
*Ted Hughes, ‘Letter’, New Statesman (28 September 1957): 387.
*According to SP’s calendar, she wrote ‘Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats’ on 2 June 1956.
*‘is are my novel’ appears in the original.
*American poet and art scholar Lynne Lawner (1935– ); B.A. 1957, Wellesley College.
*Scottish literary historian and literary critic David Daiches (1912–2005).
*American writer Henry James (1843–1916).
*Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881); Isabel Archer is a main character.
*Lawner participated in the Glascock poetry competition for a second time in 1957. Other poets included: Robert Ely Bagg, Terry Brook, Michael M. Fried, Constance Horton, and F. L. Seidel. Judges in 1957 were Anthony Hecht, Howard Nemerov, and Andrews Wanning.
*Donald Lehmkuhl; B.A. 1955, Columbia University. In the Best Poems of 1955, Lawner won first prize for her poem ‘Wedding Night of a Nun’; Lehmkuhl second prize for his poem ‘Hart Crane’; and SP third prize for ‘Aubade’.
*G. S. Fraser, ‘Parnassian Grades’, New Statesman (18 May 1957): 649–50. Fraser writes, ‘He does not seem to me to have anything centrally interesting to say about life, but he is a superb verse craftsman who makes most of his English contemporaries – those between thirty and forty – looks like fumbling amateurs . . . Mr. Wilbur’s book should be bought and read, both for sensuous pleasure, and as an example of what sheer workmanship in verse means.’