The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 137
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Note written on wrapping paper from the Gordon Fraser Gallery, Fitzroy Yard, off Fitzroy Road, London.
*SP’s letter is at the end of a letter begun by TH, which has not been transcribed.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Exeter.
*Possibly ‘The Ducks and the Drakes’, The Impostors, BBC Home Service (29 May 1962) and ‘The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower’, BBC Home Service (12 June 1962).
*Possibly Peter Wilsher, ‘Heart of the Matter’, Sunday Times (3 June 1962): 48.
*The clipping is no longer with the letter.
*SP, ‘Berck-Plage’ (30 June 1962).
*Dr Beuscher’s father, Dr Donald Grey Barnhouse (1895–1960) was a Christian preacher, pastor, and writer. He died on 5 November 1960 following an operation for a brain tumour.
*TH and Assia Wevill had begun an affair which was discovered by SP on 9 July 1962.
*Cf. SP’s ‘Words heard, by accident, over the phone’ written on the same day as the letter.
*Assia Wevill’s husbands were: John Steel (married 1947; divorced 1949); Richard Lipsey (married 1952; divorced 1959); and David Wevill (married 1960–9, until Assia Wevill’s death).
*SP’s revised proof with autograph corrections and first Heinemann edition, both inscribed with her name and address, appeared at auction via Bonhams on 21 March 2018.
*C.f. SP’s ‘Elm’: ‘Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.’
*Cf. SP’s poem ‘The Other’: ‘Sulfurous adulteries grieve in a dream. / Cold glass, how you insert yourself / Between myself and myself.’ (2 July 1962).
*‘a good thing for his brother’ appears in the original.
*Percy Key died on 25 June 1962 and was buried on the 29th in the cemetery off Exeter Street, North Tawton.
*Marvin Kane, We’re Just Not Practical, a play about a couple working as housekeepers in a boardinghouse and their bad luck.
*SP’s ‘Tulips’.
*SP visited the Comptons.
*SP, George Hartley, G. Arthur Wilkinson, and Eric Walter White met at White’s office, 4 St James’s Square, London, on 19 July 1962 to finalise the contest winners. Due to illness John Press was unable to attend. Second and third prizes were awarded to Harold Massingham for ‘Graveside’ and Marion Lineaweaver for ‘The Sound of My Habitation’. Judges were paid 20 guineas for their work.
*According to SP’s submissions list, she sent ‘Event’, ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, and ‘Elm’ to The Observer on 30 June 1962 and at a later unspecified date, ‘Crossing the Water’, ‘An Appearance’, and ‘Little Fugue’. Sylvia Plath, ‘Crossing the Water’, The Observer (23 September 1962): 25; ‘Event’, The Observer (16 December 1962): 21; ‘The Rabbit Catcher’, The Observer (7 February 1965): 26.
*Irish poet Richard Murphy (1927–2018).
*The island of Inishbofin, which lies seven miles off the coast of Ireland. Murphy operated the Ave Maria, a Galway hooker, from the fishing village of Cleggan, where he lived.
*SP met Richard Murphy on two occasions in 1961. The first at the Poetry at the Mermaid Festival on 17 July, and then later at the Guinness Poetry Awards on 31 October.
*Richard Murphy, Sailing to an Island (London: Faber & Faber, 1963).
*TH, ‘Hawk Roosting’.
*See SP to Brian Cox, 17 October 1961.
*A reference to Homer, The Odyssey. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus who, while she had suitors, remained faithful to her husband in his absences.
*Possibly a reference to SP’s 20 March 1959 journal entry: ‘A desire to get my hair cut attractively instead of this mousy pony tail. Will no doubt go out and get a pageboy cut as of old’ (Journals, 475).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP travelled to London the day before, 9 August 1962, probably to record at the BBC; see note in SP to George MacBeth, 19 June 1962.
*A chain of holiday camps in the United Kingdom.
*According to SP’s Letts Royal Office Diary Tablet for 1962, this was Mrs Bires, who began working at Court Green from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 20 August 1962.
*On 15 August 1962, SP and TH stayed at the Connaught Hotel, Carlos Place, Mayfair, London, as guests of Olive Higgins Prouty, and saw Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at the Ambassadors Theatre, West Street, London.
*George MacBeth (ed.), The Penguin Book of Sick Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963); includes Sylvia Plath, ‘The Surgeon at 2 a.m.’ and ‘In Plaster’, 14–16; 20–2.
*SP sent ‘Berck-Plage’ and ‘The Other’.
*The photographs are no longer with the letter.
*Claire (Kane) Prouty, sister-in-law of Olive Higgins Prouty.
*Olive Higgins Prouty’s children were Richard, Olivia, and Jane.
*The letter is no longer with SP’s letter.
*There are several references to eyes in Murphy’s poem ‘The Cleggan Disaster’ but here Plath likely refers to the line ‘His eyes, scalded by the scurf of salt’ (Sailing to an Island, 27).
*Anne Sexton, All My Pretty Ones (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962). SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*Anne Sexton, ‘Letter Written During a January Northeaster’.
*Anne Sexton, ‘Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound’.
*In June 1961, Sexton was awarded a $3,000 grant by the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study.
*Anne Sexton, ‘The Sun’, New Yorker (12 May 1962): 44.
*SP took riding lessons with Miss P. B. Redwood at Lower Corscombe Farm, Corscombe Lane, near Okehampton.
*SP may be referring to her unfinished novel The Interminable Loaf, later titled Doubletake and then Double Exposure. TH calls the novel Double Exposure in his introduction to SP’s Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams. On 10 August, in SP’s Letts Royal Office Diary Tablet for 1962, she wrote ‘Start Int. Loaf!!!’
*This submission included: ‘Berck-Plage’, ‘The Other’, ‘Words heard, by accident, over the phone’, ‘Poppies in July’, and ‘Burning the Letters’.
*See Howard Moss to SP, 27 June 1962; 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. TH expressed disappointment that they could not travel to London to see the Whites and the Sweeneys due to SP’s flu and 103-degree temperature. He commented on some Sydney Nolan prints and arranged to visit London to meet a co-judge (Ian Fletcher) for the 1963 Poetry Book Society selections.
*Australian painter and printmaker Sydney Nolan (1917–92).
*Probably a reference to Marianne Moore’s poem ‘Marriage’: ‘This institution, / perhaps one should say enterprise’ (Collected Poems, 69).
*Judith Jones to SP, 30 August 1962; held by University of Texas at Austin.
*Marianne Moore to Judith B. Jones, 7 April 1962; held by University of Texas at Austin. See also Marianne Moore to SP, 14 July 1958; held by Smith College.
*E. Lucas Myers, ‘The Tranquilized Fifties’, Sewanee Review 70 (Spring 1962): 212–20.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*The Kanes were in Cornwall. SP’s address book indicates they were likely at ‘Felpham’, Headlands Road, Carbis Bay. By the time SP visited the Kanes on 13 October, they had moved to a house called ‘Quaintways’ in Hicks Court, The Digey, St Ives.
*According to SP’s Letts Royal Office Diary Tablet for 1962, she saw the Comptons on Wednesday, 29 August 1962 at 3 p.m. A note indicates she gave them ‘potatoes, onions etc.’
*David Compton (as Guy Compton), Too Many Murderers (London: John Long, 1962).
*In the margin, an unidentified hand has written ‘(Sept 12)’ in pencil.
*The Old Forge, Cleggan.
*According to SP’s address book, Ben Sonnenberg was in Málaga, Spain.
*Paddi Pads was one of the first brands of disposable nappies.
*Spanish military leader and dicta
tor Francisco Franco (1897–1975).
*A brand of camping stove.
*A brand of baby and infant foods.
*The Sillitoes were in Tangier, Morocco.
*Sheena Cartwright; lived in Totnes, South Devon.
*According to SP’s Letts Royal Office Diary Tablet for 1962 and address book, on 25 September she met Charles Mazillius of Harris, Chetham & Co., 23 Bentinck Street, London W.1.
*In August 1940 SP’s father Otto Plath stubbed his toe and because of his untreated diabetes developed gangrene in his left leg. It was amputated above the knee on 12 October.
*Probably Mary Coyne’s sons Seamus Coyne and Owen Coyne.
*Mary Anne Coyne (c. 1896–2002), Richard Murphy’s housekeeper; lived in Knockbrack, Cleggan.
*Kitty Marriott, a local woman from whom SP intended to rent a cottage called ‘Glasthule’ in Moyard.
*See Ruth Beuscher to SP, 17 September 1962; held by Smith College. Dr Beuscher rejected the idea of SP paying for their correspondence, calling the idea ‘irrelevant’.
*TH went to the house of Irish painter Barrie Cookie (1931–2014) at Ballagh, Quin, County Clare. Cooke was married to Harriet Pearl (Leviter) Cooke (1936–90), and had two children Liadin (1958– ) and Julia Alison. TH left Ireland, met Assia Wevill, and travelled to Spain until the end of September.
*Dr Beuscher wrote, ‘The psychiatric pitfall that I see is your succumbing to the unconscious temptation to repeat your mother’s role – i.e., martyr at the hands of the brutal male.’
*A reference to the Great Depression (1929–39).
*When ASP sold SP’s papers to Indiana in 1977, this letter and the one from SP to ASP of 22 November 1962 were placed under seal.
*Possibly Stephen C. Drake (1958– ); lived at Essington Park, North Tawton.
*‘Your telling Winifred . . . So I have no medication’: these sentences redacted by ASP in black felt tip pen. Over time the ink has faded and the text below is readable with the assistance of Photoshop. Similar measures were taken to restore additional redactions in several letters through 22 November 1962.
*This sentence redacted by ASP.
*Smith College holds SP’s and TH’s cheque books. TH withdrew £87 in cash from 21 July to 23 August.
*Winifred Davies’s house was ‘Longmeadow’, off Exeter Road, North Tawton.
*Probably an article on ‘Austria’ featured in the Modern Living Travel section of The Observer (23 September 1962): 35.
*John Powell to SP, 17 September 1962; held by BBC Written Archives Centre. Powell, a producer for the BBC, sent SP listeners’ letters.
*According to SP’s Letts Royal Office Diary Tablet for 1962, this was a Mrs Weare.
*‘this next Thursday or Friday’ appears in the original.
*Two poems have been identified as likely having been written to Assia Wevill. TH’s ‘Only your ivory body’ (first line) and ‘Sunlight’, which are uncollected, unpublished poems in both manuscript and typescript drafts. ‘Sunlight’ is dated ‘North Tawton – October 1962’. Held in the Ted Hughes papers, Emory.
*In her 17 September letter to SP, Dr Beuscher wrote, ‘First, middle and last, do not give up your personal one-ness. Do not imagine that your whole being hangs on this one man . . .’
*The postscript is written in the left margin of the first page.
*Dr Beuscher writes, ‘If you really mean it about separation and not liking him, I would advise going whole hog and getting a divorce.’ See Ruth Beuscher to SP, 26 September 1962; held by Smith College.
*SP wrote ‘For a Fatherless Son’ (26 September 1962).
*Richard Murphy, ‘The Empty Tower at Ballylee’, The Observer (7 October 1962): 29; a review of several books published in 1962 including W. B. Yeats, Explorations; J. M. Synge, Collected Works: Poems; and Stanislaus Joyce, The Dublin Diary of Stanislaus Joyce.
*In his review, Murphy mentions his recent drive ‘to the poet’s Tower at Ballylee with some friends . . . We found the square fortress towering over the ford of a trout-stream. Rooks flopped from the vacant windows . . .’ (29).
*In the week prior to this letter, SP had written: ‘A Birthday Present’ (30 September); ‘The Detective’ (1 October); ‘The Courage of Shutting-Up’ (2 October); ‘The Bee Meeting’ (3 October); ‘The Arrival of the Bee Box’ (4 October); ‘Stings’ (6 October); and ‘The Swarm’ (7 October).
*Howard Moss to SP, 26 September 1962; held by Smith College. Sylvia Plath, ‘The Elm Speaks’ [‘Elm’], New Yorker (3 August 1963): 28.
*‘all this time summer’ appears in the original.
*According to Assia Wevill’s biographer this was on Friday 13 July 1962.
*SP submitted: ‘A Birthday Present’, ‘The Detective’, ‘The Courage of Quietness’ [‘The Courage of Shutting-Up’], ‘A Secret’, ‘For a Fatherless Son’, and ‘Bees’ (a sequence comprising ‘The Bee Meeting’, ‘The Arrival of the Bee Box’, ‘Stings’, ‘The Swarm’, and ‘Wintering’).
*Howard Moss to SP, 26 September 1962; held by Smith College.
*That autumn, Winifred Davies wrote to ASP on 22 September, 25 October, 3 November, and 5 December 1962; held by Lilly Library.
*Since writing to Murphy on 7 Ocotber, SP had completed: ‘Wintering’ (9 October); ‘A Secret’ (10 October); ‘The Applicant’ (11 October); and ‘Daddy’ (12 October).
*Elizabeth Jennings, ‘Mrs Browning. By Alethea Hayter’, The Listener (13 September 1962): 400. Jennings writes, ‘Memorable English or American women poets can be numbered on less than two hands; one thinks of Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Edith Sitwell’s early work, Anne Ridler, Kathleen Raine, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and scarcely anyone else.’
*On 9 July, upon intercepting a telephone call from Assia Wevill to TH, SP had ripped the telephone line out of the wall.
*Most likely ‘The Applicant’ and ‘Daddy’, which Plath handwrote on her submissions list with the batch sent on 10 October 1962.
*See Edith Hughes to ASP, 17 October 1962; held by Lilly Library.
*Since writing to ASP on 12 October, SP had completed ‘Eavesdropper’ (15 October) and ‘Medusa’ (16 October). SP submitted ‘Eavesdropper’ with seven other poems to Poetry on 23 November. Accepted in Henry Rago to SP, 27 December 1962; letter held by Smith College. Sylvia Plath, ‘Fever 103’, ‘Purdah’, and ‘Eavesdropper, Poetry (August 1963): 292–8. SP made revisions to ‘Eavesdropper’ on 31 December 1962; however, as Ted Hughes noted, ‘No final copy was made’ (Collected Poems, p. 294).
*According to SP’s Letts Royal Office Diary Tablet for 1962, the nanny appears to have been a Miss Hutchins. SP wrote ‘Miss Hutchins’ on 17 October.
*Susan A. O’Neill-Roe (1940– ). O’Neill-Roe worked for the Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.