by Sylvia Plath
*A note on the letter indicates that Plath submitted eight poems including: ‘Alicante Lullaby’, ‘The Eye-mote’, ‘Green Rock, Winthrop Bay’, and ‘The Other Two’.
*American editor and writer William Maxwell (1908–2000).
*Rev. Herbert Hitchen (1894–1979); born in Norland, Yorkshire; pastor of the Unitarian Church of Northampton, Mass., 1958–66; collector of Irish literature.
*See Herbert Hitchen Irish Collection, 1908–70; held by Smith College.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘A Walk to Withens’, Christian Science Monitor (6 June 1959): 8. SP’s first article, ‘Kitchen of the Fig Tree’, Christian Science Monitor (5 May 1959): 12.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*In a journal entry written one week later, SP rates her recent stories, in order, as ‘Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams’, ‘The Fifteen Dollar Eagle’, ‘The Shadow’, ‘Sweetie Pie and the Gutter Men’, ‘Above the Oxbow’, and ‘This Earth Our Hospital’ [‘The Daughters of Blossom Street’].
*American journalist A. J. (Abbott Joseph) Liebling (1904–63); married 1959–63 to American short-story writer and novelist Jean Stafford (1915–79).
*Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 3.
*American editor and book publisher Seymour Lawrence (1927–94).
*Merloyd Lawrence.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Ouija’, ‘Electra on Azalea Path’, ‘Suicide Off Egg Rock’, and ‘Moonrise’, Hudson Review (Autumn 1960): 413–16.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Companionable Ills’, The Spectator (30 January 1959): 163, and ‘Main Street at Midnight’ [‘Owl’], The Spectator (13 February 1959): 227.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Aftermath’, ‘The Goring’, and ‘Sculptor’, Arts in Society 1 (Fall 1959): 66–7.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘I Want, I Want’, Partisan Review 26 (Fall 1959): 558.
*Emilie McLeod to SP, 9 June 1959; (photocopy) held by Yale University.
*Ann H. Davidow, Let’s Draw Animals (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1960).
*The Atlantic Monthly Press, 8 Arlington Street, Boston; rejected by Emilie McLeod on 17 August 1959 on behalf of the Atlantic and Little, Brown.
*American illustrator and children’s author Maurice Bernard Sendak (1928–2012).
*American illustrator Joseph Low (1911–2007).
*Swiss-born American illustrator and children’s writer Roger Duvoisin (1900–80).
*Russian-born American artist Nicolas Mordvinoff (1911–73) and American author William Lipkind (1904–74) collaborated on children’s picture books under the pseudonym Nicolas and Will.
*George Starbuck, Bone Thoughts (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1960); Starbuck lived at 40 Grove Street, Boston.
*This provisional title for SP’s poetry collection is a quotation from T. S. Eliot’s poem ‘Ash-Wednesday’. SP submitted a book under this title to Knopf (8 June 1959), to the Viking Press (6 October 1959), and to Farrar, Straus & Cudahy (30 October 1959).
*Two of the poems Plath submitted and had accepted were ‘In Midas’ Country’ and ‘The Thin People’, London Magazine (October 1959): 11–13. SP and these poems mentioned in Anthony Curtis, ‘Current Literary Periodicals’, Times Literary Supplement (13 November 1959): 666.
*Probably proofs for TH’s poems ‘Hawk Roosting’, ‘Strawberry Hill’, and ‘November’, which were published in Critical Quarterly (Summer 1959): 124–5.
*Peter Davison, ‘The Site of Last Night’s Fire’, Atlantic Monthly (June 1959): 50.
*Date supplied: a reader’s report form is dated 1 July 1959.
*Paper roughly torn.
*The reader’s report indicates that Accent considered ‘The Thin People’, ‘The Eye-mote’, and ‘Maudlin’; also present in the archive are typescripts for ‘Green Rock, Winthrop Bay’, and ‘Landowners’.
*Postmarked Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 11 July 1959, 8 p.m.
*SP and TH left Wellesley on 7 July 1959, stopping briefly in Northampton to see the Baskins before continuing on the first day of their trip.
*Postmarked Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 11 July 1959.
*Postmarked Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 11 July 1959.
*Postmarked Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 11 July 1959.
*Alan Pryce-Jones to SP, 6 July 1959; held by Smith College. Sylvia Plath, ‘Two Views of a Cadaver Room’ and ‘The Hermit at Outermost House’, Times Literary Supplement (6 November 1959): 23, 29.
*Wash ’n Dri is a brand of moist, antiseptic lightly scented towelette.
*Frieda Plath Heinrichs (1897–1970). Otto Plath’s sister. She and her husband Walter J. Heinrichs (1887–1967) lived at 4579 Loma Vista Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, California.
*Postmarked Cornucopia, Wisconsin, 15 July 1959.
*Postmarked Jamestown, North Dakota, 16 July 1959.
*Andrew Nozal (1902–94), his wife Helen Folezyk Nozal (1913–92) and their two children Richard Rory (1937–2003) and Marcia Nozal Baker (c. 1947– ).
*See Sylvia Plath, Drawings (New York: Harper Collins, 2013), 56.
*Postmarked Medora, North Dakota, 18 July 1959.
*Postmarked Custer, Montana, 19 July 1959.
*Postmarked Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, 20 July 1959, 5.30 p.m.
*Postmarked Salt Lake City, Utah, 25 July 1959.
*Postmarked Salt Lake City, Utah, 25 July 1959.
*Postmarked Sacramento, California, 27 July 1959.
*TH added a note at the bottom of the letter about arriving at and swimming in Great Salt Lake. This has not been transcribed.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Devil of the Stairs: Poems’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Bull of Bendylaw and Other Poems’, book of poems submitted to the Yale Younger Series of Poets in February 1959.
*Postmarked Sacramento, California, 27 July 1959.
*Founded in 1926, Giant Orange was a juice stand business with sites along many of California’s highways.
*Joan and Roger Breed Stein. Roger Breed Stein (1932–2010); graduate student at Harvard University, A.B. 1954, A.M. 1958, Ph.D. 1960; married to Joan Workman Stein (divorced 1976). According to SP’s address book, the Steins’ address was care of Mrs Carl Weiner, 1401 Stone Canyon Road, Los Angeles. Carl Weiner (1906–85) and Ruth Weiner (1906–2009).
*American Automobile Association, founded in 1902.
*TH added a note at the bottom of the letter, which has not been transcribed. TH noted that he and SP made a $10 bet on the number of bears, she guessing 93, he 71. They saw 67 bears. The 55th was the one which broke into their car. He also expresses pride at SP’s luck when fishing, his amaze at sleeping on the Pacific beach, and admits this was the best experience of his life.
*Margaret Myers (1889–1970).
*SP and TH met Monroe Spears and his wife Betty Greene Spears (1917–2009); see Monroe Spears to SP, 25 August 1959; copy held by Sewanee: The University of the South. In this letter he accepts SP’s story ‘The Fifteen Dollar Eagle’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Midsummer Mobile’, Christian Science Monitor (1 July 1959): 8; ‘Fiesta Melons’, Christian Science Monitor (13 July 1959): 8; ‘Song For a Summer’s Day’, Christian Science Monitor (18 August 1959): 8; and ‘Southern Sunrise’, Christian Science Monitor (26 August 1959): 8.
*Postmarked Needles, California, 4 August 1959.
*Postmarked Needles, California, 4 August 1959.
*Postmarked El Paso, Texas, 8 August 1959.
*Postmarked Terrell, Texas, 11 August 1959.
*Postmarked Terrell, Texas, 11 August 1959.
*TH sent a postcard of Brulatour Courtyard in the French Quarter, New Orleans, to ASP from Sewanee, Tennessee. ASP annotated the postcard ‘1959, Aug. 14’. See Letters of Ted Hughes: 152.
*Elizabeth Ames to SP and TH, 12 August 1959; held by New York Public Library.
*TH’s studio was called Outlook.
*According to Yaddo’s records, the guests at the time SP and TH were there included writer Charles G. Bell (1916–2010); composer Gordon Binkerd (1916–2003); composer Chou Wen
-chung (1923– ); painter Robert Fremont Conover (1920–98); painter Worden Day (1916–86); painter Arthur Deshaies (1920–2011); sculptor Lu Duble (1896–1970); painter Martin Janto (1918–93); painter Dwight Kirsch (1899–1981); writer Perrin Lowrey (1923–65); writer Sonia Raiziss (1906–94); painter Howard Sand Rogovin (1927– ); painter Hyde Solomon (1911–82); writer May Swenson (1913–89); and composer Lester Trimble (1923–86).
*Charles G. Bell and Sonia Raiziss.
*SP’s passport, issued in Boston on 8 September 1959, held by Emory University.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit’. SP sent ‘The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit’ to Knopf on 18 September 1959; it was rejected by 4 October. The story was identified in the Plath collection at the Lilly Library c. 1995 and published by Faber (UK) and St Martin’s Press (US) in 1996.
*See SP to Rachel MacKenzie, 20 September 1959.
*Letter misdated by SP.
*Probably Charles G. Bell, who departed on 18 September 1959.
*Probably Elizabeth Ames and American poet Pauline Hanson (1910–2008); resident secretary of Yaddo, 1950–75; acting director, autumn 1959.
*American writer and editor Rachel MacKenzie (1909–80).
*Howard Moss to SP, 9 June 1959; held by New York Public Library.
*The original line, stanza 3, line 3, read: ‘Hair blonde as Marilyn’s—’, and was revised by SP to ‘Haloes lustrous as Sirius—’. No draft of the original poem appears extant; however, Moss quotes the line in his letter of 9 June 1959 to SP, cited above.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Magnolia Shoals’ and ‘Yaddo: The Grand Manor’; both poems rejected.
*Probably regarding T. S. Eliot’s reading at the Boston University Theater, 29 October 1959. The event was sponsored by the Boston University Women’s Guild.
*Possibly Mary A. Dunn, president of the Boston University Women’s Guild, 1961–3.
*SP’s Poetry Society of America membership card for 1959–60 appeared at auction via Bonhams on 21 March 2018.
*Perrin Lowrey, who departed on 29 September 1959.
*In addition to Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, SP may have been referring to the Huntington Hartford Colony in Los Angeles, California. However, there were many additional artists’ retreat colonies in the USA to which SP may be referring.
*British novelist, historian and critic Andrew Sinclair (1935– ).
*Susan Marie Alliston (1937–69); married to Clement Henry Moore on 19 December 1959, at the Memorial Chapel, Harvard University. Warren Plath acted as usher. Alliston later dated TH.
*Shirley Baldwin Norton (1931–95); married to SP’s friend Perry Norton on 19 June 1954 (divorced 1978); mother of John Christopher, Steven Arthur, Heidi, and David Allan.
*Charles Perry Norton (1932– ), B.S. 1954, Yale College; M.D. 1957, Boston University School of Medicine; SP’s friend from Wellesley. SP dated Perry Norton in high school and later dated his older brother Richard Norton.
*David William Norton (1944– ); youngest brother of Richard Norton.
*Ted Hughes, The House of Taurus.
*Pauline Hanson.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP’s letter is at the end of a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed.
*Ted Hughes, ‘The Rain Horse’, Harper’s 220 (January 1960): 76–80.
*While at Yaddo, Plath sold two articles with drawings and four poems: ‘Mosaics – An Afternoon of Discovery’, Christian Science Monitor (12 October 1959): 15, with two drawings captioned: ‘White plaster tenements on a cliff overlooking the fishing harbor at Benidorm, Spain’ and ‘A Spanish kitchen range with a petrol stove, oil bottles, milk can, and a stewpot’; ‘Explorations Lead to Interesting Discoveries’, Christian Science Monitor (19 October 1959): 17, with two drawings captioned: ‘A colorful pattern of rounds and oblongs, knobs and wheels, legs and handles’ and ‘Each object has a line, a tint, a character of its own – the older and odder the better’; ‘Yaddo: The Grand Manor’, Christian Science Monitor (21 October 1959): 8; ‘Magnolia Shoals’, Christian Science Monitor (26 October 1959): 8; ‘Dark Wood, Dark Water’, Christian Science Monitor (17 December 1959): 12; and ‘Memoirs of a Spinach-Picker’, Christian Science Monitor (29 December 1959): 8.
*Rachel MacKenzie to SP, 6 October 1959; held by New York Public Library.
*A wildfire began on 13 October 1959, in the foothills north of Los Angeles including Altadena, Pasadena, and La Cañada.
*SP and TH sailed on the SS United States from Pier 86 in New York City, departing on 9 December and arriving at Southampton, via Le Havre, on 14 December 1959.
*American writer and professor of literature Wallace Fowlie (1908–98).
*Pauline Hanson, The Forever Young: And Other Poems (Denver: Alan Swallow, 1957).
*John Lehmann to SP, 22 October 1959; (photocopy) held by Smith College.
*In his letter, Lehmann writes, ‘I think The Wishing Box very amusing and imaginative, but I wasn’t convinced by the pay-off: the suicide not only seemed to me rather unconvincing but also somehow out of key’ and ‘I also thought there excellent things in The Shadow but again the pay-off, in my opinion, struck the wrong note’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Daughters of Blossom Street’, London Magazine 7 (May 1960): 34–8.
*Judith Margaret Reutlinger Anderson (1934–2008); B.A. 1956, English, Mount Holyoke College; Anderson conducted graduate work at the University of Minnesota, 1957–9.
*Transcribed from images that accompanied its listing at two auction sales by Bonhams on 13 February and 22 June 2011. The letter sold through RR Auction, in October 2012 for $4,915.20.
*The card has not been located.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Lament’, New Orleans Poetry Journal 1 (October 1955): 19.
*Rachel MacKenzie to SP, 24 November 1959; held by New York Public Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Net Menders’, New Yorker (20 August 1960): 36.
*SP submitted: ‘Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond’ (section 5 of ‘Poem for a Birthday’), ‘Mushrooms’, ‘A Winter Ship’, ‘Two Views’, and ‘The Burnt Out Spa’. ‘Two Views’ is either ‘Two Views of Withens’, composed in 1957, or ‘Two Views of a Cadaver Room’ written earlier in 1959. It may be the former as Plath had had success with the New Yorker with her geographical poems (e.g. ‘Watercolor of Grantchester Meadows’ and ‘The Net Menders’). According to SP’s submissions list, she sent ‘Two Views of Withens’ to the Atlantic Monthly in January 1960. SP submitted ‘Two Views of a Cadaver’ to The Nation but did not record it on her submissions list.
*SP sent ‘The Sleepers’, ‘Polly’s Tree’, ‘The Net Menders’, ‘Memoirs of a Spinach-Picker’, and ‘Dark Wood, Dark Water’ on 3 November 1959.
*Editor, novelist and critic Robie Macauley (1919–95).
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Colossus’ and ‘The Beekeeper’s Daughter’, Kenyon Review (Autumn 1960): 595–6.