by Sylvia Plath
*Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago (trans. Max Hayward and Manya Harari, 1958).
*SP and TH occupied tourist class cabin A-31.
*The SS United States manifest lists one passenger travelling on a Danish passport, Leif Hansen, a butler; and one passenger destined for Denmark, Carl H. Andresen, a restaurateur travelling on a US passport.
*The Music Box was a music shop then at 58 Central Street, Wellesley, Mass.
*‘arrive by Sept December’ appears in the original.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Original De Rangel Creacion Fischgrund Christmas card.
*Panda Prints Christmas card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘A Winter’s Tale’.
*Daniel Huws (1932– ), British; B.A. 1955, Peterhouse, Cambridge; friend of Ted Hughes and contributor to Saint Botolph’s Review. Huws lent Hughes his flat at 18 Rugby Street, London W.C.1, 1955–6.
*Probably Daniel Huws, ‘The Fox’, The Nation (14 November 1959): 352–3; and ‘The Holly’ and ‘The Survivors’, Sewanee Review (Winter 1960): 93–4.
*Helga Kobuszewski Huws (1931– ).
*Madeleine Huws (1958– ).
*This was SP’s ‘The Devil of the Stairs: Poems’, which she submitted to Farrar, Straus on 30 October 1959.
*See TH to Stephen and Agatha Fassett, 14 May 1960, for more detail on the ship crossing, flat hunting, and the birth of Frieda Hughes; held by Houghton Library.
*Dido Merwin.
*Dr John Woolnough Wigg (1904–71); lived at 114 Regent’s Park Road, London N.W.1.
*Dr Christopher Paton Hindley, B.A. 1951, M.B. B.Chir. 1954, Classics, Medicine, Trinity College, Cambridge.
*Carters is a brand of children’s clothing.
*Cf. SP’s ‘The Disquieting Muses’.
*The proof, in blue wrappers, held by Lilly Library.
*First and early editions of Lupercal exerpted quotes from A. Alvarez in The Observer, Robin Skelton in Manchester Guardian, Kenneth Young in the Daily Telegraph, Edwin Muir in the New Statesman, and unsigned reviews in the Times Literary Supplement and Sunday Times.
*‘the lease for this Friday’ appears in the original.
*SP’s father, Otto Plath, died from complications with diabetes mellitus.
*Hallmark Contemporary Christmas card. SP edited the printed greeting herself to acknowledge its being sent just after the Christmas season.
*The landlord was Scott, Ford & Co., 38–40 Camden Road, London N.W.1.
*Madeline Redmond Sheets (1905–2006). According to SP’s address book, Sheets lived at 1 Weld Road, Stoneham, Mass. Sheets was a trained nurse.
*French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934– ); her son Nicolas-Jacques Charrier born on 11 January 1960.
*‘& gossiping about Ted & London’ appears in the original.
*The Merwins’ house was at 11 St George’s Terrace, London N.W.1. TH and SP had use of a study in the house when the Merwins were abroad.
*English poet and editor Brian Cox (1928–2008).
*Brian Cox to SP, 13 January 1960; held by Smith College.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Medallion’, Poetry 1960: An Appetiser (Critical Quarterly Poetry Supplement 1, 1960): 20.
*Along with ‘Medallion’, SP submitted ‘The Beggars’, ‘Maudlin’, ‘The Burnt-out Spa’, ‘Blue Moles’, and ‘The Manor Garden’ to the Critical Quarterly on 1 January 1960.
*The first two paragraphs are typewritten, the remainder handwritten by SP.
*Ted Hughes, ‘Sunday’, ‘Snow’, and ‘The Courting of Petty Quinnet’, submitted to Mademoiselle on 5 October 1959.
*R. B. Silvers to SP, 8 January 1960; held by Smith College. Harper’s rejected ‘The Burnt-out Spa’, ‘The Manor Garden’, and ‘A Winter Ship’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Mushrooms’, Harper’s 221 (July 1960): 25.
*SP and TH purchased their bed, bureaus, and baby crib from Bowman’s Furniture Store, Camden Town. Later, SP furnished her 23 Fitzroy Road flat with Bowman’s wares as well.
*The postscript is written in the left margin of the first page.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘A Prospect of Cornucopia’, ‘Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams’, and ‘The Fifty-Ninth Bear’, submitted on 28 September 1959.
*Ted Hughes, ‘Tomcat’, New Yorker (9 January 1960): 102; printed as ‘Esther’s Tomcat’ in Lupercal.
*The Ladies’ Home Journal ran several articles on babies and children each month. Possibilites in this instance include Joan Younger, ‘How America Lives: “Our Baby Was Born at Home”’, Ladies’ Home Journal (January 1960): 111–16; or Benjamin Spock, ‘You Can Have Fun With Your Children’, Ladies’ Home Journal (February 1960): 77, 132–3.
*Introduction: Stories by New Writers (London: Faber & Faber, 1960); featured A. O. Chater, Alan Coren, Ted Hughes, Jim Hunter, Jason McManus, and Julian Mitchell.
*These last two sentences added by SP by hand in the margin.
*Mary K. Morton. Morton and her attic living space inspired SP’s poem ‘Leaving Early’, written on 25 September 1960.
*Book review and fiction editor at Harper’s, Katherine Gauss Jackson (1904–75).
*The two-page letter is typed on the back of a continuous piece of the wallpaper, halved by SP. Among other objects, the pattern includes a birdcage, lamps, bicycles, car, hot air balloon, mailbox, and parking meter, in red, grey, black, and green on a white ground.
*The bathroom wallpaper sample is no longer with the letter. The Lilly Library does have a sample of the bedroom wallpaper, labelled as such in SP’s hand. The pattern’s ‘flat pink roses’ feature in SP’s ‘Morning Song’ (1961) and other creative works.
*W. S. Merwin owned a farmhouse in Lacan de Loubressac, near Bretenoux, Lot, Midi-Pyrénées, France.
*The other prize-winner was Alan Brownjohn, ‘William Empson at Aldermaston’, Poetry 1960: An Appetiser (Critical Quarterly Poetry Supplement 1, 1960): 21–2.
*English auther A. A. Milne (1882–1956).
*From Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908); According to SP’s diary, she finished reading this novel by 5 June 1944.
*American pediatrician Dr Benjamin Spock (1903–98). SP’s copy of his Baby & Child Care (London: Bodley Head, [1960]) held by Smith College.
*French painter Maurice Utrillo (1883–1955).
*Cary Plumer Frye and Douglas Plumer; twins born 16 December 1958 and adopted by Davenport (Mike) and Marcia Brown Plumer (later Stern).
*British obstetrician Grantly Dick-Read (1890–1959); SP’s copy of his Childbirth without Fear: The Principles and Practice of Natural Childbirth, 3rd edition revised (London: William Heinemann Medical Books, 1959) held by Smith College.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP’s letter is at the end of a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed.
*The York Minster was at 49 Dean Street, London.
*Publisher, poet, and translator James Michie (1927–2007) was SP’s editor at William Heinemann and helped her prepare The Bell Jar for publication on 14 January 1963. Michie left Heinemann in 1962 to join Bodley Head.
*English playwright and novelist W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965).
*English writer Evelyn Waugh (1903–66).
*American writer Erskine Caldwell (1903–87).
*Sylvia Plath, The Colossus and Other Poems (London: Heinemann, 1960). Published 31 October 1960.
*James Michie to SP, 5 February 1960; held by Smith College. According to SP’s submissions list, she sent the manuscript on 25 January 1960.
*SP submitted The Colossus to the Yale Series of Younger Poets on 25 January 1960. The Yale manuscript included ‘Owl’, ‘The Beggars’, and ‘Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats’, which were not part of the Heinemann edition. SP slightly shifted the order of poems as well.
*‘February 18, 1959 60’ appears in the original.
*Ivan the Terrible, Part 2, released in Britain as The Boyars’ Plot; was shown at the Academy Cinema, then at 161–7
Oxford Street, London.
*SP circled ‘Barclay’s Bank here’ and added ‘also a “just writing account” so the Boston account will be kept PURE!’ by hand.
*SP’s American psychiatrist Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse Beuscher (1923–99). SP was Dr Beuscher’s patient at McLean Hospital in 1953–4, continued private therapy in person through 1959, and by letter into 1963.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Manor Garden’, Critical Quarterly 2 (Summer 1960): 155.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Two Views of a Cadaver Room’, The Nation (30 January 1960): 107.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Two Views of a Cadaver Room’, The Golden Year (New York: Fine Editions Press, 1960): 219–20.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Poem’, The Observer (14 June 1959): 22. Title changed to ‘Night Shift’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Eye-mote’, Chelsea Review 7 (May 1960): 71.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Hardcastle Crags’, The Golden Year (New York: Fine Editions Press, 1960): 220–1.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Hardcastle Crags’, Light Blue, Dark Blue (London: MacDonald, 1960): 166–7.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘All the Dead Dears’, Grecourt Review (November 1957): 36–7.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Metaphors’, Partisan Review 27 (Summer 1960): 435.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Blue Moles’, Critical Quarterly 5 (Summer 1960): 156–7.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Disquieting Muses’, Guinness Book of Poetry 1958/59 (London: Putnam, 1960): 106–7.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Spinster’, Smith Alumnae Quarterly (June 1958): 71.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Spinster’, Guinness Book of Poetry 1956/57 (London: Putnam, 1958): 88.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Sculptor’, Grecourt Review 2 (May 1959): 282.
*In an unidentified hand someone has written ‘Ted Hughes’s address’ next to the return address.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Blue Moles,’ ‘The Beggars’, and ‘The Manor Garden’, Critical Quarterly 2 (Summer 1960): 155–7.
*SP’s ‘Poem for a Birthday’.
*Ibsen’s Rosmersholm played at the Comedy Theatre on Panton Street.
*Irish poet and writer Brendan Behan (1923–64); his The Hostage played at Wyndham’s Theatre, on Charing Cross Road.
*A flyer for the society announced that readings that term would be held in Jesus College at 8:15 p.m. In addition to TH, other readers that term were Donald Hall, Stephen Spender, and John Lehmann.
*SP’s presentation copy, signed and inscribed by TH, appeared at auction via Bonhams on 21 March 2018.
*Probably Michael Fried (1939– ), B.A. 1959, Princeton, who participated in the Glascock contest in April 1957 and April 1958.
*Elizabeth Jane Howard, ‘The New Young Writers’, The Queen (March 1960): 141–2; photograph by John Hedgecoe; the other writers were Michael Campbell, Julian Fane, Keith Waterhouse, and Alan Sillitoe.
*In addition to publishing SP’s ‘Hardcastle Crags’ and ‘Epitaph for Fire and Flower’, Light Blue, Dark Blue also published Ted Hughes, ‘Macaw and Little Miss’, 130–1.
*David Andrews Ross (1935–2012), British; B.A. 1956, history, Peterhouse, Cambridge; friend of TH and editor of Saint Botolph’s Review; married Barbara R. Davies (1928– ) in 1957.
*Lucas Myers married Cynthia Sanborn Smith in Paris on 21 August 1959. Daniel Huws was best man. Lucas Myers sailed on Wednesday, 16 March 1960, on board the SS Louise Lykes. Cynthia Myers gave birth to Rosamond Myers on 1 May 1960.
*Cynthia Sanborn Smith; shared the same name as her daughter.
*English poet Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001).
*English writer Roy Fuller (1912–91).
*British writer and critic Christine Brooke-Rose (1923–2012).
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Sleepers’ and ‘Full Fathom Five’, London Magazine (June 1960): 11–13.
*Selfridges is a department store chain with its flagship branch on Oxford Street, London.
*The Guardian and The Observer ran several articles on a blizzard that affected Massachusetts and other US states in early March 1960.
*French tragedian Marie Bell (1900–85); her company was called La Compagnie Marie Bell; played at the Savoy Theatre, Savoy Court, The Strand, London.
*Nancy Pope Mayorga, ‘Money is Wonderful’, Good Housekeeping 150 (February 1960): 66–7, 138, 140, 142.
*Lady Rosamond Myers Thornton (1921–2017), who according to SP’s address book lived at Thornwood, Littleworth Cross, Seale, near Farnham, Surrey. Married Sir Peter Eustace Thornton (1917–2013) in 1946.
*Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) was an English author of children’s books. Farjeon grew up nearby in Adelaide Road but lived in Perrin’s Walk, Hampstead, from the 1920s until her death.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP adds a note to a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed. In his contribution, TH asks for help finding an envelope of Guggenheim-related letters and an American tax form. He notes that he is slowly getting back into writing after being away from it, discusses recent visits from his sister and Lucas Myers, and a get-together at Daniel Huws’s with Matthew John Caldwell Hodgart (TH’s director of studies during his first years at Pembroke College) and MacDonald Emslie (a fellow graduate of Pembroke College).
*French philosopher and writer Albert Camus (1913–60).
*W. S. Merwin, Some Spanish Ballads (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1961); the dedication in the book reads ‘To Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’.
*Dr Mabel Noall (1908–99).
*See Joan Meyers to SP, 1 March 1960; held by Lilly Library.
*‘cider or wine if when’ appears in the original.
*Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), his Ivan the Terrible, Part I & Part II; played at the Academy Theatre.
*Possibly a reference to the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 2 Regent’s Park Road, London.
*TH worked on a libretto based on the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead).
*TH was awarded the Somerset Maugham Award in 1960 by the Society of Authors for Hawk in the Rain. The award is for foreign travel.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*TH added a note at the bottom of the letter, which has not been transcribed. TH noted SP’s efforts to see as many films as possible and SP’s health being improved.
*Ted Hughes, The House of Aries.
*SP’s father’s birthday was 13 April; her mother’s was 26 April; and her brother’s was 27 April.
*‘served it them’ appears in the original.
*Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) played at the Academy Cinema.
*English poet, novelist, essayist, and critic Alfred Alvarez (1929– ); poetry editor of The Observer, 1956–66. A. Alvarez, ‘An Outstanding Young Poet’, The Observer (27 March 1960): 22.