The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 169
*Simon Sidamon-Eristoff (1891–1964); a Georgian aristocrat and soldier.
*Plato Alexander Skouras (1930–2004); B.A. 1952, Yale College.
*Spyros Panagiotis Skouras (1893–1971); motion picture pioneer and head of 20th Century Fox, 1942–62.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably Kenneth S. Warren (1929–96); B.A. 1950, Harvard College; M.D. 1955, Harvard Medical School.
*Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.
*Six American Painters, an exhibition at the Smith College Museum of Art, 24 September–22 October, 1951, featured works by Richard E. Baringer, Bessie Boris, William Congdon, Leonard Ruder, Richard Wilt, and Emerson Woelffer.
*The Yankee Pedlar Inn, 1866 Northampton Street, Holyoke, Mass.
*Joe’s Spaghetti House, 33 Market Street, Northampton, Mass. A restaurant and bar owned and operated by Joseph Biondi.
*Evelyn Page (1902–77), assistant professor of English, Smith College, 1949–56.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Perfect Set-Up’, Seventeen 11 (October 1952), 76, 100–4.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Edward Cohen to SP, [16 October 1951]; held by Lilly Library.
*The Saturday Review of Literature, a weekly magazine published from 1924 to 1982.
*‘arrival for of the most beautiful’ appears in the original.
*‘an ephenmer ephemeral (sp?)’ appears in the original.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008); American author and commentator; B.A. 1950, Yale College. His God and Man at Yale (1951).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Ernest Edor Nelson, Jr (1930– ); B.S. 1952, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
*The thirty-ninth annual Horticultural Show was held in the Physical Education Cage on 2–4 November 1951.
*See Eddie Cohen to SP, [26 October 1951]; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Latvian’; held by Lilly Library.
*American writer Nelson Algren (1909–81). Algren’s Chicago: City on the Make was published in New York by Doubleday, 1951.
*SP attended the discussion between Smith College chaplain William Cole and William F. Buckley, Jr, in Graham Hall at Smith College. The discussion concerned Buckley’s recent God and Man at Yale. SP’s notes held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied by ASP.
*Francis P. and Helen Gibson O’Neil, parents of SP’s classmate Patricia O’Neil Pratson from Wellesley.
*Published in Collected Poems under the title ‘Sonnet: To Eva’.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘As a Baby-Sitter Sees It’, Christian Science Monitor, 6 November 1951, 19; and Sylvia Plath, ‘As a Baby-Sitter Sees It’, Christian Science Monitor, 7 November 1951, 21.
*The Elks National Foundation, to which SP applied for the Most Valuable Student scholarship in 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*American poet, writer, critic, and publisher Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965); his play The Cocktail Party (1949).
*Sage Hall at Smith College with an auditorium seating 700 persons.
*Film versions of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Voyage Home (1940) and Anna Christie (1930)
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Suburban Nocturne’; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Somebody and We’; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Sonnet: To Time’; see Collected Poems, 311. The poem is no longer with the letter.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably Sylvia Plath, ‘Unitarianism: Yesterday and Today’, dated 8 December 1951; held by Lilly Library.
*The lecture was given by Sir George Samson, director of the East Asian Institute at Columbia University. An unattributed article by SP resulted: ‘Says Capitalism May Save Asia’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 16 November 1951, 10.
*According to SP’s calendar, he was Herbert Günther Jovy from Wiesbaden, West Germany.
*Letter misdated by SP; date supplied from postmark.
*Ruth Freeman lived in Lewis Hall.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*David Lean’s film version of Oliver Twist (1948) was shown at the Academy of Music, Northampton, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*An unattributed article, ‘Smith Girls to Take Exams in Civil Service’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 5 December 1951, 3.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Mary Ventura’, dated 14 December 1951; held by Lilly Library.
*Evelyn Page, co-author with Dorothy Blair of Beacon Hill Murders (1930), Back Bay Murders (1930), Cat’s Paw (1931), Murder Among the Angells (1932), and In the First Degree (1933), all published as by ‘Roger Scarlett’. In World War II, Page was an aircraft inspector and served in the Women’s Army Corps.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Performed at the New Century Theatre, then at 932 Seventh Avenue at W. 58th Street, New York.
*See SP to Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff, 8 December 1951.
*Probably Sylvia Plath, ‘Sonnet: To Eva’.
*Probably Philip Livingston Poe Brawner (1931– ); B.A. 1953, Princeton University; dated SP in 1951–2. Brawner was vice-president of American Whig-Cliosophic Society, Princeton’s debating club, which also published the Nassau Literary Magazine. The Brawner family, who moved from Charleston, West Virginia, to Wellesley in 1950, lived at 175 Cliff Road. See SP to ASP, 8 February 1952.
*Richard Norton to SP, 11 December 1951; held by Lilly Library.
*Margaret Morrison spoke at 7:15 p.m. on 11 December 1951 in the Little Chapel of the Library on the subject of ‘Christian Science: The Voice of Truth’. Sylvia Plath, ‘“True Health” Lecture Topic at the College’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 14 December 1951, 7.
*‘interested in Science Christian Science!’ appears in the original.
*In Herald Square at Broadway and 34th Street in New York City.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Ezra Pound, Pisan Cantos (1948).The location of SP’s copy is unknown.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*According to SP’s calendar, she covered the Reinhold Niebuhr lecture. Niebuhr spoke on ‘The Cultural Crisis’ as part of the Smith College Religious Association forum on ‘The Shaping of the Foundations’ held in the Browsing Room, Neilson Library. An unattributed article, probably by SP, resulted: ‘Universal Faith Has the Answer, Dr. Niebuhr Says’, Springfield Union, 5 February 1953, 21.
*Dr Christian was a radio serial which ran 1937–54. The show aired on Boston’s WEEI.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*People’s Institute, a community centre at 38 Gothic Street, Northampton, Mass.; SP was a volunteer tutor in art, spring 1952.
*This sentence added by SP in the left margin.
*A residence house on Bedford Terrace, Northampton, Mass.
*SP covered a second lecture by Reinhold Niebuhr on the topic of ‘The Personal Crisis’. An unattributed article, probably by SP, was published: ‘“Crisis” Is Topic of Dr. Niebuhr in Northampton’, Springfield Union, 6 February 1952, 21.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The numbers 3, 6 and 7 are circled by SP in the letter.
*Anne Tracy Sidamon-Eristoff (1890–1978).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Reverend Nathaniel P. Lauriat (1922–2004); minister of the Unitarian Church of Northampton and Florence (later Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence), 1951–6.
*John F. Malley was the founder of the Elks National Foundation.
*SP received prizes on 27 January and 24 May 1950 at ceremonies held at the Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston, Mass.
> *In 1948, SP won a merit award for her poems ‘April: 1948’ and ‘The Farewell’.
*In 1949, SP’s watercolours titled ‘Thanksgiving’ and ‘Hallowe’en’ won awards.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Boston Lying-In Hospital, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston. SP visited on 1 February 1952.
*Probably Thomas J. De Kornfeld, M.D. 1953, Harvard Medical School.
*Eddie Cohen to SP, [7 January 1952]; held by Lilly Library.
*Cohen wrote, ‘Tell me, my love, was that your idea of a joke, or were you really and truly unaware that the girl uses Pond’s?’ Pond’s: a brand of face cream.
*Robert Helmer MacArthur (1930–72).
*Robert Gregory McGrath (1931–2009); B.A. 1952, Amherst College.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*SP had personalized blue postcards that read ‘Sylvia Plath / Haven House, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.’
*According to SP’s calendar, she went on a double date with Carol Sameth McCauley (1933– ) B.A. 1954, geology, Smith College.
*A student committee of Smith College consisting of members of Student Council, Judicial Board, Activities Board, house representatives, and representatives from each class year. During her junior year, SP served as one of the secretaries of Electoral Board.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Rally Day was Friday 22 February 1952.
*American cartoonist Charles Addams (1912–88) whose work regularly appeared in the New Yorker; best known as the creator of the ‘Addams Family’ characters.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Whale Inn is a restaurant and inn on Route 9 in Goshen, Mass.
*See Richard Norton to SP, 25–7 February 1952 and 28 February–1 March 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably Sylvia Plath, ‘Though Dynasties Pass’; held by Lilly Library.
*Possibly Cynthia Walsh (Smith, 1939).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Carol Taylor Brown purchased a house at 211 Crescent Street, Northampton, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Dutch mathematician and Marxian theoretician Dirk Jan Struik (1894–2000) spoke on ‘Academic Freedom and the Trend to Conformity’ in the Browsing Room of the Neilson Library on 3 March 1952, at 7:45 p.m. SP’s article was unattributed: ‘“Heresy Hunts” Menace Liberty; Stuik Claims’, Springfield Union, 4 March 1952, 2.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Brief Encounter’, rewritten as ‘Though Dynasties Pass’; held by Lilly Library.
*Enid Epstein, ‘On Seeing the Renoir Show’, Seventeen 11 (March 1952), 146.; SP’s ‘The Perfect Set-Up’ won Honorable Mention in ‘The Short-Story Contest Winners’ (22).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*SP covered vespers held in John M. Greene Hall at 7:00 p.m. for Press Board. The speaker was the Rev. David Roberts, Dean of Union Theological Seminary; Music by Freshman Choir B, Katrina Schmidt ’53, Director. SP’s article was unattributed: ‘Misery of Man Is Due to His Defects’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 11 March 1952, 5.
*The lecture was given by Massimo Salvadori (1908–92), a professor of modern European history at Smith College, 1945–73. SP’s article was unattributed: ‘Marxism Seeks to Replace God, Lecturer Says’, Springfield Union, 13 March 1952, 30.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Unitarian Universalist minister William Brooks Rice (1905–70).
*A diner in Auburn, Mass.
*Edward Estlin (E. E.) Cummings (1894–1962), often styled as e e cummings: American poet.
*Swan Lake was performed at the Boston Opera House.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Pines Hotel was in Cotuit, Mass.
*The Southward was an inn and restaurant in Orleans, Mass.
*A shield was a piece of fabric sewn into clothing, usually in the underarms, to protect it from perspiration.
*American poet Robert Frost (1874–1963) and American politician Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908–57). Both spoke in John M. Greene Hall at Smith College; Frost on 9 April 1952; McCarthy on 10 April 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Elizabeth A. Drew (1887–1965); English professor, Smith College, 1946–61; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. Drew taught a course on the literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (English 211) completed by SP, 1951–2, and modern poetry (English unit) completed by SP, 1952–3.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Alison Vera Smith (1933–97); SP’s friend and Smith classmate from New York City. In June 1952, Alison Smith withdrew from Smith College to attend Johns Hopkins University.
*The Bread Loaf School of English, a summer graduate programme, at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The other sophomore was Enid Epstein.
*Smith Review, the literary magazine of Smith College was revived with the fall 1952 issue. SP published her short stories and poems in the magazine and served on the editorial board, 1952–5.
*American poet Ogden Nash (1902–71). Nash spoke in John M. Greene Hall; two unattributed articles were published on the event: ‘Ogden Nash’s Rhyming Knack Makes Up for His Talent Lack’, Springfield Union, 1 May 1952, 30; and ‘Ogden Nash Is Speaker’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 2 May 1952, 6.
*SP covered the Friends of Smith College Libraries meeting; an unattributed article was published on the event: ‘Smith Library Displays “Fanny Fern Collection”’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 5 May 1952, 8.
*Probably Elizabeth Hugus Smith ’16, who served as the News Editor for the College during the 1951–2 academic year.
*English-born poet Wystan Hugh Auden (1907–73); William Allan Neilson Research Professor, Smith College, 1953.
*Russian-American political scientist Vera Micheles Dean (1903–72); visiting professor, 1952–4.
*Date supplied from postmark
*The postcard featured the Whale Inn, Goshen, Mass., with the caption ‘When down in the mouth, Remember Jonah! He came out all right.’