by Sylvia Plath
Woman’s Day, 844–5, 1144
Woman’s Home Companion, 1143
Woods, Jeanne Hall, see Haile, Jeanne Woods
Woods Hole, Mass., 132, 947; The Landfall (restaurant), 949
Woodstock, New York, 925–6
Woody, J. Melvin, 720, 727n, 732, 747, 750, 773; ‘Civilization’, 346, 637, 640; SP’s correspondence with, 345–7, 713, 744–6, 748, 756–7, 779–82, 851–3, 871–4
Woolf, Virginia, 234, 709, 779, 793, 1092, 1096, 1124, 1144; Mrs Dalloway, 793
Wordsworth, William, 388, 976
World Federalist Association, 141
World Series (baseball), 166
World War II, 31, 135, 238 403n, 1078; destruction, 87, 152
Wormser, Dorothea, see Stein, Dorothea Wormser
Wouk, Herman, The Caine Mutiny, 503n, 647
Wrenn, Mary, see Baird, Mary Wrenn Morris
Wright, Benjamin Fletcher, 174, 178, 373, 558, 686–7, 700–2, 854, 858, 900, 911
Wright, David, 1303n
Wright, Kenneth E., 174n, 175, 179n, 315, 317, 323, 412
Wright, Richard, Native Son, 333
Writer’s 1955 Year Book, 954
Writer’s Digest, 924
Wunderlich, Ray C., 461, 467, 469, 590, 592, 601, 609; SP’s dating of, 609–12, 622, 696
Wuthering Heights (motion picture), 931, 933
Wyatt-Brown, Bertram, 1152
Wylie, Philip, Generation of Vipers, 359n
Yale, Rosemary Nesta, 1296n
Yale Law School, 397, 474–5, 480, 485 Yale Series of Younger Poets, 902, 917, 942, 1177, 1196, 1249, 1252, 1259
Yale University (New Haven, Conn.), 174, 192, 200, 209, 245, 279, 282, 285, 291, 297, 307, 309, 312, 317, 322, 328, 335, 343, 346–7, 377, 385, 424, 475, 509–10, 531, 533, 556, 559n, 560, 563, 578, 580, 600–1, 604, 617, 620, 685, 1076, 1136, 1141–2, 1264n; Branford Chapel, 761; Commencement (250th), 322, 335–6; Freshman Prom, 424; Gargoyle, 868; Junior Prom, 293–4, 296, 298, 551, 554, 559–60, 564–5, 567, 571, 574, 580–1; School of Medicine, 531;
colleges: Calhoun, 756; Jonathan Edwards, 320, 343; Pierson, 343; Silliman, 559, 580–1, 583, 585, 614; Timothy Dwight, 614
Yale Dramatic Association (Dramat), 298n
Yale University Press, 942n
Yamrick, Anne, 574
Yankee Pedlar Inn, 383
Yankee Stadium (New York), 642
Yates, Diana, see Lycette, Diana Yates
Yeats, Georgie, 1327n
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 558, 563, 652, 709, 791, 852, 1017, 1103, 1122, 1134, 1173, 1179, 1203, 1250, 1274, 1280, 1287–8, 1309, 1323, 1327, 1329; ‘Among School Children’ (quotation from), 791n; ‘A Coat’, 852n; ‘Crazy Jane’, 1329; ‘The Municipal Gallery Revisited’ (quotation from), 1017n; The Tower, 1329; ‘Two Songs from a Play’ (quotation from), 1134n, 1274n, 1280n;
Yellowstone National Park, 149
Yorkshire, UK, 1165, 1203, 1208–9, 1230n, 1231, 1233, 1235, 1237–8, 1242, 1264, 1270, 1298, 1319
‘You Belong to Me’, 544
Young, Ann, 767n
Young, Harold, 767n
Young Women’s Christian Association (‘YWCA’), 959, 963, 1294
Zaidi, Zahida, 1272n, 1305, 1318
Zanuck, Darryl F. (Darryl Francis), 171n
Zanzibar, 472
Zeeman, E. C. (Erik Christopher), 1287n
Zeeman, Elizabeth, see Salter, Elizabeth
Zelinkoff, Sonya, see Simon, Sonya Zelinkoff
Zeus (Greek deity), 1098
Zilles, Luke, 1256n, 1276n; ‘Bunch of Wildflowers’, 1256n, 1276n
Zinnemann, Fred, 717n
Zurich, Switzerland, 222
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
SYLVIA PLATH (1932–1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright Scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her volume Ariel (1965) secured her reputation, and The Collected Poems (1981), which contains poetry written from 1956 until her death, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Archivist PETER K. STEINBERG has published more than a dozen articles on Sylvia Plath. He wrote the introduction to The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath (2010) and is the coauthor of a book of essays, These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (2017). He maintains the oldest continuously updated website for Plath, A celebration, this is (www.sylviaplath.info), as well as the Sylvia Plath Info Blog (http://sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com).
KAREN V. KUKIL curates the Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath collections at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She also teaches in their Archives Concentration Program and is the editor of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950–1962 (2000). Her exhibitions include “No Other Appetite”: Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and the Blood Jet of Poetry (Grolier Club, New York, 2005) and One Life: Sylvia Plath (National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, 2017).
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com
BY SYLVIA PLATH
poetry
ARIEL
THE COLOSSUS
CROSSING THE WATER
WINTER TREES
COLLECTED POEMS
(edited by Ted Hughes)
SELECTED POEMS
(edited by Ted Hughes)
ARIEL: THE RESTORED EDITION
(Foreword by Frieda Hughes)
POEMS
(chosen by Carol Ann Duffy)
fiction
THE BELL JAR
JOHNNY PANIC AND THE BIBLE OF DREAMS
non-fiction
LETTERS HOME: CORRESPONDENCE 1950–1963
(edited by Aurelia Schober Plath)
THE JOURNALS OF SYLVIA PLATH
(edited by Karen V. Kukil)
SYLVIA PLATH: DRAWINGS
(edited by Frieda Hughes)
for children
THE BED BOOK
(illustrated by Quentin Blake)
THE IT-DOESN’T-MATTER SUIT
(illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner)
COLLECTED CHILDREN’S STORIES
(illustrated by David Roberts)
COPYRIGHT
THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA PLATH VOLUME 1. Copyright © 2017 by The Estate of Sylvia Plath. Materials published in Letters Home copyright © 2017 by The Estate of Aurelia Plath. Introduction and editorial matter copyright © 2017 by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil. Foreword copyright © 2017 by Frieda Hughes.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Faber & Faber Ltd.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
Cover photograph of Sylvia Plath at Cambridge, England, by Jane Baltzell Kopp, courtesy of Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
Print ISBN 978-0-06-274043-4
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2017 ISBN 978-0-06-274044-1
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*Otto Emil Plath (1885–1940); German instructor and biology professor at Boston University, 1922–40; SP’s father. SP was visiting her maternal grandparents at 892 Shirley Street, Winthrop, Massachusetts, when she wrote this letter. Their phone number was OCEan 1212-W.
*Frank Richard Schober (1919–2009); SP’s uncle.
*Aurelia Schober Plath (1906–94); associate professor, College of Practical Arts and Letters, Boston University, 1942–71; SP’s mother.
*Warren Joseph Plath (1935– ); educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire; A.B. 1957, Harvard College; Fulbright student at the University of Bonn, 1957–8; Ph.D. 1964, Harvard University; SP’s brother.
*The names of colours mentioned in this and the next letter are written with a corresponding coloured pencil.
*Aurelia Greenwood Schober (1887–1956); SP’s maternal grandmother.
*Dorothy Schober Benotti (1911–81); SP’s aunt; married to Joseph Benotti (1911–96) on 19 April 1941; SP served as flower girl. They lived at 49 Silver Hill Road, Weston, Mass.
*Frank Schober (1880–1965); maître d’hôtel at Brookline Country Club; SP’s maternal grandfather.
*Date supplied by ASP.
*Probably Marcia Egan, a friend and classmate who lived at 9 Mayo Road, Wellesley, Mass.
*Letter misdated 1942 by SP.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Fairy Wonders’.
*Added in pen in an unknown hand, possibly ASP’s.
*Possibly Marion Acker, who lived nearby at 398 Weston Road, Wellesley.
*‘The Merry Farmer’ by German composer Robert Schumann (1810–56).
*Margaret Beatrice Lodge, A Fairy to Stay (New York: Oxford University Press, 1929); with illustrations by A. H. [Alice Helena] Watson.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*American actors Rita Hayworth (1918–87) and Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000).
*A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner (1928).
*Mowgli was the Plath family cat.
*In the Oehda unit, SP was made a reporter along with Louise Anthony. SP, ‘Hike to Lovell River’ (report) and ‘Camping’ (poem), Weetamoe Megpahone (18 July 1943).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from internal evidence. The postcard was not postmarked.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*This paragraph added by SP in the top margin of the second page of the letter.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Ruth Freeman Geissler (1933– ); B.A. 1955, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; SP’s childhood friend from Winthrop, Massachusetts; married Arthur Geissler, Jr (1932– 2013); degree in Business Administration 1954, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; SP was maid of honour at their wedding on 11 June 1955.
*Marion Saunders Freeman (1908–98), lived at 8 Somerset Terrace, Winthrop, Mass. The Freemans were neighbours of the Plath family.
*Mount Whittier, West Ossipee, New Hampshire.
*Letter numbered 9 by SP; letters one through eight not present. SP’s diary indicates that by this day she had written fourteen letters. Those named include her mother, grandparents, and Betsy Powley.
*Louise Bowman Schober (1920–2002); married SP’s uncle Frank Schober on 27 June 1942; SP was flower girl at the wedding.
*Frieda Plath Heinrichs (1897–1970). Otto Plath’s sister.
*Betsy Powley Wallingford (1932– ), SP’s friend from Wellesley.
*SP’s diary indicates this was German composer Carl Bohm’s ‘Murmuring Brook’.
*Ruth Chadwick, SP’s social studies teacher at the Alice L. Phillips Junior High School, Wellesley, Mass.
*‘How’s How’re these menus:’ appears in the original.
*Possibly Mrs Eleanor Hayes of 12 Durant Road, Wellesley, Mass. In SP’s camp diary, held by Lilly Library, there is an entry for ‘Mrs. Wentworth L. Hayes, R.F.D. #2 – c/o Benson, Division Road, East Greenwich, R.I’.
*See SP to Warren and Aurelia Schober Plath, 5 July 1945, above.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Camp Helen Storrow’.
*A feature in the children’s section of the Sunday Boston Herald. SP’s first poem (‘Poem’, first line ‘Hear the crickets chirping’) and drawing (‘Funny Faces’) were featured in this section on 10 August 1941 and 2 August 1942 respectively.
*‘we’ll probably really stay’ appears in the original.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Thiel family of Parker Road, Wellesley, Mass.
*Margot Loungway Drekmeier (1932–2008). The Loungways were family friends who lived in Oxford, Maine. In April or May 1946 the Loungways moved to 4 Agassiz Park, Jamaica Plain, Mass.
*SP visited the Loungways in Oxford, Maine, from 23 July to 8 August 1945.
*The stamps are no longer with the letter.
*Founded in 1939, Jamestown Stamp Company began as a mail order company located in Jamestown, NY. The advertisement appeared in American Girl, August 1945, 34.
*H. E. Harris & Co. was located at 108 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Mass.
*The Valley of Decision was showing at both the Loew’s State Theatre, then located at 205 Massachusetts Avenue, and Loew’s Orpheum, then located at 1 Hamilton Place, Boston, Mass.
*According to SP’s diary, this was Reverend Dunstan. SP and Margot Loungway attended bible school from 30 July to 3 August 1945 while the Plaths were in Oxford, Maine.
*John Loungway (1935–2009).
*‘Enclosed In the envelope’ appears in the original. The enclosed stamp hinges are no longer with the letter.
*Probably a reference to Enid Blyton, The Mystery of a Disappearing Cat (1944).
*The enclosure is no longer with the letter.
*The Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Mass.
*SP’s diary notes that she went to the Wayside Inn with Reverend Max Gaebler (1921– ), his wife Carolyn Farr Gaebler (1922–2009), and Max’s brother Ralph Gaebler (1926– ), and that she signed the guestbook.
*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863).
*Each of these letter clusters, spelling ‘Nonsense’ is encircled.
*6d purple stamp depicting King George VI.
*Patricia May Thomson; 1949, Wellesley High School; moved from Darien, Connecticut, in the summer of 1945; lived at 97 Audubon Road, Wellesley.
*Duncan Peck Loungway (1944– ).
*Susan Kent Loungway (1943–2007).
*The Norfolk County Teachers’ Convention and concert was held at the Tremont Temple, 88 Tremont Street, Boston, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark and other evidence.
*The photograph is no longer with the letter.
*The Parent–Teachers’ Association night was held on 15 November 1945.
*SP drew lines around this paragraph.
*SP based her short story ‘The Mummy’s Tomb’ (17 May 1946) on this experience.
*The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass.
*Priscilla Steele (1933– ), SP’s classmate, who lived at 5 Boulder Brook Road, Wellesley, Mass.
*Possibly Patricia Ann Dunne, who lived at 32 Beverly Road, Wellesley, Mass.
*Théophile Gauthier, ‘The Mummy’s Foot’ (1840). According to SP’s diary, she finished reading this on 6 June 1945.
*Margaret Neall Peck Loungway (1907–63).
*Ferdinand John Loungway (1903–89). Loungway was a chaplain and commander in the US Navy during World War II.
*Possibly Joyce
Martin of Otisfield, Maine.
*SP was given the fountain pen by her grandfather on 6 January 1946. From her diary: ‘Grampy bought me a new fountainpen with my name in gold on it! It’s beautiful.’