Red Comet

by Heather Clark

  75. Elinor Friedman Klein, “A Friend Recalls Sylvia Plath,” Glamour (Nov. 1966): 184. Aurelia and Warren thought this article was the most accurate published after Plath’s death. Aurelia wrote to Ellie thanking her profusely.

  76. HC interview with Elinor Friedman Klein, Oct. 2015, South Salem, N.Y.

  77. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Elinor Friedman Klein, 1971–72. 2.10, MSS 1489, Emory.

  78. Klein, “A Friend Recalls,” 184.

  79. HC interview with Elinor Friedman Klein, Oct. 2015, South Salem, N.Y.

  80. SP, 22 Sept. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  81. SP, 21 Sept. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  82. SP, 18 Sept. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  83. SP to AP, 2 Oct. 1956. L1, 1261. They listened to Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, the Emperor Concerto, and the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies.

  84. Peter Redgrove had given a recording of Hughes reading “Gawain and the Green Knight,” which he had recorded at a party, to a BBC producer, Donald Carne-Ross.

  85. SP, 26 Sept. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  86. SP to AP, 28 Sept. 1956. L1, 1250.

  87. SP to AP, 2 Oct. 1956. L1, 1259. The poems would appear in the Jan. 1957 issue. Only Ruth Stone would have as many poems in the same issue.

  88. SP to TH, 1 Oct. 1956. L1, 1257.

  89. TH to SP, 4 Oct. 1956. LTH, 56.

  90. TH to SP, 9 or 10 Oct. 1956. LTH, 67.

  91. Ibid., 70.

  92. SP, 2 Oct. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  93. SP to TH, 3 Oct. 1956. L1, 1267.

  94. SP to TH, 7–8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1286.

  95. SP, 16 Oct. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  96. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 1974–75. 2.11, MSS 1489, Emory.

  97. SP to TH, 18 Oct. 1956. L1, 1308.

  98. SP to TH, 9 Oct. 1956. L1, 1291.

  99. SP to TH, 10 Oct. 1956. L1, 1298.

  100. SP to TH, 3 Oct. 1956. L1, 1265.

  101. Ibid., L1, 1268.

  102. SP to TH, 5 Oct. 1956. L1, 1273.

  103. Ibid., L1, 1274.

  104. SP to TH, 5 & 6 Oct. 1956. L1, 1274; 1280.

  105. TH to SP, 6 Oct. 1956. LTH, 63–64.

  106. TH to SP, 1 & 2 Oct. 1956. LTH, 51.

  107. TH to SP, 3 Oct. 1956. LTH, 55.

  108. Ibid., LTH, 52.

  109. Ibid., LTH, 53.

  110. TH to SP, 1 & 2 Oct. 1956. LTH, 51.

  111. TH to SP, 5 Oct. 1956, Lilly. This plot was omitted from the published letter in LTH.

  112. TH to SP, 8 Oct. 1956, Lilly. This plot was omitted from the published letter in LTH.

  113. TH to SP, 3 Oct. 1956. LTH, 53–55.

  114. TH to SP, 5 Oct. 1956. LTH, 58.

  115. SP to TH, 6 Oct. 1956. L1, 1280.

  116. SP to TH, 7–8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1285.

  117. SP to TH, 1 Oct. 1956. L1, 1256.

  118. SP to TH, 5 Oct. 1956. L1, 1276.

  119. SP to TH, 6 Oct. 1956. L1, 1279.

  120. SP to TH, 20 Oct. 1956. L1, 1316.

  121. Ibid.

  122. SP to TH, 6 Oct. 1956. L1, 1279.

  123. Ibid., L1, 1281.

  124. SP to TH, 10 Oct. 1956. L1, 1298.

  125. SP to TH, 6 Oct. 1956. L1, 1280.

  126. Ibid., L1, 1281.

  127. Ibid., L1, 1281–82.

  128. TH to SP, 9 or 10 Oct. 1956. LTH, 65.

  129. Ibid., LTH, 66.

  130. Ibid., LTH, 68; 69–70.

  131. TH to SP, 23 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  132. TH to SP, 22 Oct. 1956. LTH, 82.

  133. TH to Gerald and Joan Hughes, 7 Sept. 1956. LTH, 46–47.

  134. TH to Olwyn Hughes, Aug. 1956. LTH, 46.

  135. TH to SP, 9 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  136. Ibid.

  137. TH to SP, 19 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  138. Christopher Levenson email to HC, 18 Sept. 2017.

  139. SP to TH, 7–8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1286.

  140. TH to SP, 9 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  141. SP to TH, 7–8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1288.

  142. TH to SP, 22 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  143. SP to Jane Anderson, 25 Feb. 1954. L1, 696.

  144. SP to TH, 7–8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1288; TH to SP, 10 Oct. 1956. Lilly. Tracy Brain has pointed out that the story is indebted to Virginia Woolf’s “The Legacy” in The Other Sylvia Plath (London: Longman, 2001), 145.

  145. JP, 49.

  146. Ibid., 48.

  147. Ibid., 53.

  148. In Poetry in the Making, Hughes instructs, “Imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it.” Quoted in Keith Sagar, The Laughter of Foxes: A Study of Ted Hughes (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 58.

  149. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 1957. 1.5, MSS 980, Emory.

  150. SP to TH, 9 Oct. 1956. L1, 1292.

  151. SP to TH, 20 Oct. 1956. L1, 1314.

  152. SP to TH, 7–8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1284.

  153. TH to SP, 9 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  154. SP to AP, 8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1288.

  155. SP, 12 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  156. Gail Crowther and Peter K. Steinberg, These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (Croydon, UK: Fonthill, 2017), 69.

  157. SP to AP, 8 Oct. 1956. L1, 1289.

  158. Ibid.

  159. SP to AP, 2 Oct. 1956. L1, 1261.

  160. SP, 21 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  161. SP, 27 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  162. TH to SP, 1 & 2 Oct. 1956. LTH, 51.

  163. SP, 22 & 26 Oct. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  164. SP to TH, 22 Oct. 1956. L1, 1325–26.

  165. SP to TH, 20 Oct. 1956. L1, 1317.

  166. SP to TH, 21 Oct. 1956. L1,1320.

  167. Isabel Murray Henderson email to HC, 1 Nov. 2017.

  168. SP, 23 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  169. TH to SP, 23 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  170. TH to SP, 23 Oct. 1956. LTH, 83.

  171. Ibid., 85.

  172. SP, 23 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  173. Ibid.

  174. SP to William and Edith Hughes, 12 Nov. 1956. L2, 12.

  175. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Irene Morris, 1974–75. 2.24, MSS 1489, Emory.

  176. SP to William and Edith Hughes, 12 Nov. 1956. L2, 12.

  177. SP to AP, 13 Nov. 1956. L2, 14.

  178. SP to AP, 23 Oct. 1956. L1, 1328.

  19. ITCHED AND KINDLED

  1. TH to AP and WP, 31 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  2. Ibid.

  3. SP to AP, 28 Oct. 1956. L2, 4.

  4. SP to AP, 23 Oct. 1956. L1, 1327.

  5. SP, 26 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  6. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Susan Weller Burch, 1974. 1.13, MSS 1489, Emory.

  7. CPTH, 1078–79.

  8. TH to Olwyn Hughes, May 1956, 1.4, MSS 980, Emory.

  9. SP to AP, 21 Nov. 1956. L2, 19.

  10. SP, 18 Nov. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  11. SP, 27 & 29 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  12. SP, 31 Oct. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  13. SP, 19 Nov. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  14. CPTH, 19.

  15. In her
heavily annotated copy of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, now held at SPC, Smith, Plath wrote, “cf Black Rook” next to a passage on p. 47 that begins, “This enchantment, coming as a gift…”

  16. Tim Kendall, Sylvia Plath: A Critical Study (London: Faber and Faber, 2001), 27.

  17. Gail Crowther and Peter K. Steinberg, These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (Croydon, UK: Fonthill, 2017), 44.

  18. TH to AP and WP, 31 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  19. SP to TH, 19 Oct. 1956. L1, 1312.

  20. Ibid., L1, 1313. Hughes wrote to Plath on 20–22 Oct. that Peter Redgrove had also mentioned the competition to him.

  21. She sent it out on November 20.

  22. SP, 30 Nov. 1956, Oct. 1956–July 1957 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  23. SP to AP, 1 Nov. 1956. L2, 8.

  24. SP to WP, 20 Dec. 1956. L2, 43.

  25. CPTH, 1073–74.

  26. Ibid.; SP to AP, 1 Nov. 1956. L2, 8.

  27. SP to AP, 13 Nov. 1956. L2, 15.

  28. Memories of Whitstead. Privately printed by Rhoda Dorsey, 2007. 20.29, SPC, Smith.

  29. SP to AP, 6 Nov. 1956. L2, 9.

  30. SP to AP, 13 Nov. 1956. L2, 14.

  31. SP to AP, 19 Jan. 1957. L2, 56.

  32. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 15 Dec. 1956. L2, 36.

  33. SP to AP, 20 Dec. 1956. L2, 41.

  34. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 15 Dec. 1956. L2, 34; 38.

  35. Ibid., L2, 35; 38.

  36. CPTH, 1075.

  37. SP to AP, 13 Nov. 1956. L2, 14.

  38. TH to AP and WP, Dec. 1956. LTH, 90. Di Beddow interviewed three of Hughes’s former students, who all remembered him fondly. Conversation with Di Beddow, 15 June 2017, Huddersfield, UK.

  39. SP to AP, 2 Jan. 1957. L2, 46.

  40. SP to Luke Myers, 7 Mar. 1957. L2, 85.

  41. SP to AP, 19 Jan. 1957. L2, 56.

  42. SP to AP, 2 Jan. 1957. L2, 49.

  43. Ibid., L2, 47.

  44. SP to AP, 14 Jan. 1957. L2, 53.

  45. SP to AP, 16 Feb. 1957. L2, 69; SP to WP, 20 Dec. 1956. L2, 43.

  46. TH to AP and WP, Dec. 1956. LTH, 90.

  47. CPTH, 1075.

  48. OHP to AP, 1 Dec. 1956. Lilly.

  49. OHP to AP, 18 Dec. 1956. Lilly.

  50. TH to AP and WP, 21 Jan. 1957. LTH, 92.

  51. SP to AP, 9 Jan. 1957. She was working on “The Laundromat Affair” and a “college girl story about someone like Nancy Hunter” called “The Fabulous Roommate.” L2, 51.

  52. SP to AP, 19 Jan. 1957. L2, 57.

  53. SP to AP, 28 Jan. 1957. L2, 58.

  54. SP to AP, 29 Jan. 1957. L2, 61.

  55. SP to AP, 16 Feb. 1957. L2, 70.

  56. Jane remembered a letter from Plath to her that mentioned applying for the same Smith job, but she does not remember applying herself. Phone interview with HC, 4 Nov. 2015.

  57. Jane Baltzell Kopp, “Gone, Very Gone Youth: Sylvia Plath at Cambridge, 1955–57,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, Edward Butscher, ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co.), 79.

  58. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  59. Kopp, “Gone, Very Gone Youth,” 79.

  60. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  61. SP to AP, 9 Jan. 1957. L2, 51.

  62. The poems were “Epitaph for Fire and Flower,” “On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad,” “Miss Drake Proceeds to Supper,” and “November Graveyard,” in Chequer 11 (Winter 1956–57); SP to AP, 7 Mar. 1957. L2, 83.

  63. SP to AP, 3 Feb. 1957. L2, 63.

  64. Ibid., L2, 64.

  65. TH to AP, 21 Jan. 1957. LTH, 92.

  66. SP to AP, 3 Feb. 1957. L2, 64.

  67. SP to AP, 15 Mar. 1957. L2, 91.

  68. SP to AP, 19 Mar. 1957. L2, 98.

  69. SP to AP, 8 Feb. (#1) 1957. L2, 66.

  70. SP to AP, 26 Mar. 1957. L2, 100.

  71. SP to WP, 23 Apr. 1957. L2, 119–20.

  72. SP to Richard Sassoon, 18 Apr. 1956. L1, 1164.

  73. OHP to SP, 29 Mar. 1957. Lilly.

  74. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1957. L2, 71.

  75. SP to Lucas Myers, 7 Mar. 1957. L2, 86.

  76. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1957. L2, 73.

  77. TH, “Notes on Published Works,” Mar. 1992. 115.24, MSS 644, Emory; SP to AP, 24 May 1957. L2, 141.

  78. TH to SP, 16 Oct. 1956. Lilly. Hughes wrote, “I’m sorry to steal your own material” in reference to a plot line involving a couple at a party in Cambridge.

  79. TH, “Notes on Published Works,” Mar. 1992. 115.24, MSS 644, Emory.

  80. SP to AP, 16 Oct. 1956, L1, 1299; TH to SP, 17 Oct. 1956. Lilly.

  81. Christopher Levenson, Not One of the Boys, unpublished memoir provided to HC by Levenson.

  82. CPTH, 36.

  83. The English edition came out on 13 Sept. 1957, the American edition on 18 Sept. 1957.

  84. Peter Davison, The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston from Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 165.

  85. Edwin Muir, review of The Hawk in the Rain, New Statesman (28 Sept. 1957).

  86. W. S. Merwin, review of The Hawk in the Rain, New York Times Book Review (6 Oct. 1957).

  87. Robin Skelton, “Current Verses,” Manchester Guardian (4 Oct. 1957); Al Alvarez, “Tough Young Poet,” Observer (6 Oct. 1957).

  88. John Press, “A Poet Arrives,” Sunday Times (3 Nov. 1957).

  89. A. E. Dyson, “Ted Hughes,” Critical Quarterly 1.3 (1959): 219–26. 220.

  90. TH, Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose, William Scammell, ed. (New York: Picador, 1995), 266.

  91. TH, unidentified fragment regarding Crow. 115.24, MSS 644, Emory.

  92. Jacqueline Rose, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath (London: Virago, 1991), 156.

  93. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1957. L2, 73–74.

  94. SP to AP, 19 Mar. 1957. L2, 97.

  95. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1957. L2, 72.

  96. J, 269.

  97. J, 272.

  98. J, 269; SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1957. L2, 73.

  99. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1957. L2, 73.

  100. J, 269.

  101. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Susan Weller Burch, 1974. 1.13, MSS 1489, Emory.

  102. OHP to SP, 29 Mar. 1957. Lilly.

  103. SP to AP, 7 Mar. 1957. L2, 84.

  104. George Gibian to Harriet Rosenstein, 18 Oct. 1971. 1.30, MSS 1489, Emory.

  105. Mary Ellen Chase to Robert Gorham Davis, 3 Feb. 1957; “Faculty—Sylvia Plath Hughes.” Box 42, Smith College Archives.

  106. SP to AP, 12 Mar. 1957. L2, 87.

  107. Ibid.

  108. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 9 Apr. 1957. L2, 110–11.

  109. SP to AP, 12 Mar. 1957. L2, 88.

  110. SP to AP, 15 Mar. 1957. L2, 93.

  111. SP to AP, 26 Mar. 1957. L2, 100.

  112. Ibid.

  113. J, 273.

  114. J, 275.

  115. J, 268.

  116. J, 275.

  117. SP to AP, 26 Mar. 1957. L2, 101.

  118. J, 269.

  119. J, 276.

  120. In this paper she cited passages from Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Fantasia of the Unconscious, The Plumed Serpent, The Man Who Died, and The Woman Who Rode Away.

  121. SP, “D. H. Lawrence: The Tree of Knowledge Versus the Tree of Life,” 18 Feb. 1957. 13.4, Lilly.

  122. Ibid.

  123. SP, “Damn Braces. Bless Relaxes. Blake and Lawrence: A Brief Comparison and Contrast,” 14 Mar. 1957. 13.4, Lilly. In this paper, she called Lawrence a prophet “who deplores the short work the scientists and rationalists have
made of the luminous mysteries of the universe: of the sun and moon.”

  124. SP, 1957–58 Smith College Teaching Notes. 13.9–11, Lilly.

  125. J, 337–38.

  126. TH to Anne-Lorraine Bujon, 16 Dec. 1992. LTH, 627.

  127. TH to AP, 12 Jan. 1975. 16.3, MSS 644, Emory.

  128. The Plath poems accepted were “Sow,” “The Snowman on the Moor,” “Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats,” and “On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad.”

  129. SP to AP, 1 Apr. 1957. L2, 102.

  130. TH to AP, 15 Apr. 1957. Lilly.

  131. SP to AP, 1 Apr. 1957. L2, 102.

  132. TH to Olwyn Hughes, c. spring 1957. Add 88948/1/1, BL.

  133. SP to AP, 1 Apr. 1957. L2, 102.

  134. TH to Olwyn Hughes, c. spring 1957. Add 88948/1/1, BL.

  135. TH to Gerald Hughes and family, May 1957. LTH, 97.

  136. SP to AP, 10 May 1957. L2, 132. The original letter, held at Emory, is from Charles Montieth to TH, 9 May 1957.

  137. SP to AP, 10 May 1957. L2, 133.

  138. Ibid.

  139. SP to AP, 15 Mar. 1957. L2, 92.

  140. SP to AP, 18 Mar. 1957. L2, 94.

  141. TH to Olwyn Hughes, winter 1957. 1.5, MSS 980, Emory.

  142. TH, “Ted Hughes Writes,” Poetry Book Society Bulletin (15 Sept. 1957), 1.

  143. SP to AP, 18 Mar. 1957. L2, 94.

  144. SP to AP, 28 Apr. 1957. L2, 121.

  145. SP to Gerald and Joan Hughes, 1 May 1957. L2, 124.

  146. SP to AP, 7 May 1957. L2, 127.

  147. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 15 Dec. 1956. L2, 37.

  148. Plath’s Cambridge English Tripos Part II exam schedule, May 1957: 27 May, 9–12: “French and Italian Set Books and Unseen Translations”; 27 May, 1:30–4:30: “Essay”; 28 May, 9–12:30: “Criticism and Composition”; 28 May, 1:30–4:30: “English Moralists”; 29 May, 1:30–4:30: “Tragedy”; 31 May, 9–12: “Chaucer.” There is a complete copy of this version of Two Lovers and a Beachcomber in the Alvarez Papers, Add MS 88589, BL. It differs slightly from the manuscript of the same title that Plath entered in the Yale Younger Poets competition in February 1957.

  149. SP to AP, 29 May 1957. L2, 145.

  150. SP to Jane Baltzell, 18 Feb. 1958. L2, 217.

  151. SP to AP, 8 June 1957. L2, 146.

  152. See Anon., “Cambridge Opinions,” Cambridge Review 78 (28 May 1957): 585–86; 607; 609 and L2, 146.

  153. SP to AP, 8 June 1957. L2, 146.

  154. Olwyn Hughes, “Notes on Correspondence [with Ted Hughes],” n.d. 1.1, MSS 980, Emory. Hughes was so impressed by Douglas that he delivered a short program on the BBC about him in 1962, and then, at Faber and Faber’s request, edited and introduced a collection of Douglas’s poetry.