The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 170
*Nita Converse and Calvin D. Crawford, owners of the Pines Inn, in Cotuit, Mass.
*The Belmont, a hotel then in West Harwich, Mass. SP worked as a waitress there in June 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Smith College Warden Alison Loomis Cook.
*Helen Whitcomb Randall (1908–2000), English professor at Smith College, 1931–73; dean of the college, 1948–60; SP’s colleague, 1957–8.
*Maria Canellakis Michaelides (1930– ); B.A. 1953, biological sciences, Smith College.
*Holly Stair Greer (1931– ); B.A. 1953, history, Smith College.
*According to SP’s calendar, she set up Alison Smith with Milton Viederman (1930– ); B.A. 1951, Columbia University; M.D. 1955, Harvard University; Nancy Teed with Walden Benjamin Whitehill (1930– ), B.S. 1951, Grinnell College; M.D. 1955, Harvard University; and Anne Goodkind Bird (1933– ); B.A. 1955, history, Smith College, with Allan Irwin Sandler (1929–2001); B.A. 1951, Princeton University; M.D. 1955, Harvard University.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Janet Salter Rosenberg (1932– ); B.A. 1954, English, Smith College.
*American activist Patrick Murphy Malin (1903–64); talk in Sage Hall on ‘World Tension and American Civil Liberties’ in what SP called a required government lecture in her calendar.
*On 10 May 1952, the College Film Committee showed The Medium, a film based on the contemporary opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti, at Sage Hall. Also shown was Norman McLaren’s Pen Point Percussion (1951).
*An unattributed article, ‘15 Area Girls to Graduate From Smith College June 9’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 27 May 1952, 9.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Elizabeth Drew, T. S. Eliot: The Design of His Poetry (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949).
*Drew lived at 54 Prospect Street, Northampton.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Sunday at the Mintons’’, Mademoiselle, August 1952, 255, 371–8. The other prize winning story was Elizabeth Marshall (1931– ), ‘The Hill People’, Mademoiselle, August 1952, 254, 363–71.
*Paul Austin Dalton (1933–2011); schoolmate of SP’s at Wellesley High School, class of 1951; B.A. 1955, Brown University.
*Leo F. Driscoll, head waiter at the Belmont Hotel.
*Probably Richard Norton to Sylvia Plath, [8 June 1952]; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Margarita G. Smith (Mademoiselle) to SP, 9 June 1952; see SP’s publications scrapbook, 103">p. 21; held by Lilly Library. Margarita G. Smith (1923–83); fiction editor at Mademoiselle, 1943–60.
*According to SP’s calendar, SP worked on ‘Sunday at the Mintons’’ on 25 March 1952 and 7–8 April 1952.
*Probably Ilona Karmel, ‘Fru Holm’, Mademoiselle, August 1950, 203, 293–305. Karmel was a 1951 graduate of Radcliffe College.
*Though not a Mademoiselle fiction contest story, possibly Hollis Alpert, ‘The Partition’, Mademoiselle, September 1947, 192, 293–7.
*Though not a Mademoiselle fiction contest story, possibly Peggy Thompson, ‘This is how it was’, Mademoiselle, March 1949, 143, 200–2.
*Jo Ann Wallace Davidson (1931– ); B.A. 1952, art, Smith College.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Lloyd Chaim Fisher (1930–2007); B.A. 1952, Dartmouth College; attended Dartmouth Medical School, 1951–3; M.D. 1955, Columbia University.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Aili Kaukonen Bertocci (1907–79), wife of Angelo Philip Bertocci (1907–2002), a professor at Boston University. The Bertoccis lived at 30 Pine Street, Wellesley, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Pauline Ann LeClair (1934–2013); B.S. 1956, University of Massachusetts.
*According to SP’s calendar, she typed her story ‘Side Hall Girl’ on 16 February 1956. The University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, holds the only known, extant page of the typescript (p. 2); named characters are Mary and Polly.
*According to SP’s calendar and her journal, this was James Clark Williams, LL.B. 1953, Harvard Law School.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Lighthouse Sand Bar, 33 Lighthouse Road, West Dennis, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*‘two hours for after dinner’ appears in the original.
*Ray Charles Wunderlich, Jr (1929–2014); B.S. 1951, University of Florida; M.D. 1955, Columbia University; dated SP, 1952–3.
*Harold Strauss (1907–75); editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
*Harold Strauss to SP, 26 June 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*Cyrilly Abels (1904–85); managing editor of Mademoiselle, 1950–early 1960s.
*The Mill Hill Club was in West Yarmouth, Mass.
*Identified as ‘Weasel’ in SP’s calendar and journal.
*Arthur Bennett Kramer (1927–2008); B.S. 1949, Yale College; M.A. 1951, LL.B., 1953, Yale University; dated SP, 1952–3.
*Quartet (1948), based on four of W. Somerset Maugham’s short stories, played as a double feature with Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) based on the novel by Roy Horniman, at the Kenmore Square Theater in Boston.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Letter not addressed to a specific person; probably for ASP. Letter written on a form headed ‘Please send this absentee report to the Evening Division office after class or the morning following class meeting.’ Possibly used by Boston University. At the bottom of the form there is a space for ‘School or College’ which SP had modified to read ‘School of Hard Knocks’.
*Christian Science Monitor, 10 July 1952, 15. The full advertisement reads: ‘COLLEGE-AGE GIRL for Mother’s helper for balance of summer. Neat, intelligent, and of pleasant disposition. Refs. exch. Salary arr. Box 546. Chatham, Mass. Tel.: Chatham 493-J.’ SP clipped and saved the advertisement in her Smith College scrapbook, p. 19; held by Lilly Library.
*Margaret Kiefer Cantor (1910–2003) and M. Michael Cantor (1906–2003). During the summer of 1952, SP was a mother’s helper at the Cantors’ summer home on Bay Road, Chatham, Mass., where she took care of their children: Joan (1939– ), Susana (1947– ), and William Michael (1949– ). The Cantors lived at 276 Dorset Road, Waban, Mass.
*SP saw the summer 1952 production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Mass., starring Dana Andrews as Tom, Mary Todd as Laura, June Walker as Amanda, and Walter Matthau as the gentleman caller.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was with Mrs Frank Williams, 45 Brook Street, Wellesley, on 9 July 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Katherine Cantor (1935– ).
*Flora Van Noorden Kiefer (1885–1941).
*Date supplied from postmark by Warren Plath.
*A reference to the Beaver Country Day School in Newton, Mass.
*In Harwichport, Mass.
*The Cape Playhouse, Dennis, Mass. SP saw Ballet Variante starring Mia Slakvenska and Frederic Franklin.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Hall Nichols (1896–1979) and Evelyn Sargent Nichols (b. 1898). The Nichols lived at 98 Brook Street, Wellesley, Mass.
*Sargent Nichols (1936–2011).
*Mary Agnes Bonneville (1931–2007); B.A. 1953, zoology, Smith College. SP’s roommate in Lawrence House, 1952–3.
*Either ‘Toward an American Language’, The Atlantic 190 (July 1952), 29–37; or ‘The American Loneliness’, The Atlantic 190 (August 1952), 65–9.
*American politician and presidential candidate Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1900–65). Probably his ‘Text of Stevenson Speech of Welcome to Convention’, New York Times, 22 July 1952, 12.
*American writer Whittaker Chambers (1901–61); born Jay Vivian Chambers, also known as David Whittaker Chambers. His autobiography Witness (
New York: Random House, 1952).
*The Sail Loft was a clothing store at 38 Bridge Street, Chatham, Mass., 1947–96.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was on 14 June 1951.
*The Sou’wester was a restaurant then at 1563 Main Street, West Chatham, Mass.
*Joseph Kramm, The Gypsies Wore High Hats (1952) played at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Mass.
*Probably Val Gendron, ‘Second Blooming’, Ladies Home Journal, March 1953, 44, 104, 106, 108, 110–11.
*American fiction writer Val Gendron (1913–89), formerly Ruth C. Fantus.
*Dr Marion Frances Booth (1899–1963); college physician and professor of bacteriology and public health, Smith College, 1941–61; SP’s Smith psychiatrist, 1954–5; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. SP served on Honor Board with Dr Booth, 1952–3.
*Probably Edna Rees Williams (1899–1992); English professor, Smith College, 1930–64; SP’s colleague, 1957–8. Williams co-directed freshman English (English 11) completed by SP, 1950–1.
*Broadway producer Richard Aldrich (1902–86). Married to British actress Gertrude Lawrence (1898–1952).
*Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910); the founder of Christian Science.
*Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health (Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1875).
*This sentence added in left margin my SP.
*Date supplied from postmark by Warren Plath.
*Marvin Stanley Cantor (1930–2007).
*Robert Shepard Cochran (1935–56); dated SP during summer of 1952. He was a senior at the Clark School in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a summer resident of Chatham, Mass.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Carnival Nocturne’, Seventeen 12 (April 1953), 127; see Natalie Gittelson to SP, 7 August 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*Natalie Gittelson (d. 2009); editor of the ‘It’s All Yours’ section of Seventeen.
*Margot Macdonald, previously editor of the ‘It’s All Yours’ section of Seventeen.
*Louis MacNeice, ‘Snow’; SP misquotes lines from the poem: ‘World is crazier and more of it than we think, / Incorrigibly plural.’
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Music Circus, 21 West Main Street, Hyannis, Mass. Die Fledermaus: 1874 operetta by Johann Strauss.
*SP pasted the programme onto p. 20 of her Smith College scrapbook.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Riverside Reveries’, Christian Science Monitor, 9 September 1952, 8.
*Possibly ‘Riverside Reveries’, noted above, or ‘White Phlox’, Christian Science Monitor, 27 August 1952, 12.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘When I’m a Parent . . . ’, Seventeen, November 1949, 77. SP’s response was ‘I will not pry, but I will never go to the opposite extreme and be indifferent to my child’s experiences outside the home.’ See SP’s publications scrapbook held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Carnival Nocturne’, Seventeen 12 (April 1953), 127.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*‘put the whole feast upstai on a tray’ appears in the original.
*American writer and marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907–64).
*Probably Carol Hemingway who was born in 1911, two years before Val Gendron.
*‘getting a friend Perry to wait’ appears in the original.
*Ednah Shepard Cochran.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*‘markets down from a big Writer’s Handbook’ appears in the original.
*See SP’s journal entry dated ‘Friday – August 22’ [1952].
*Attila A. Kassay, Hungarian; B.A. 1955, business administration, Northeastern University; dated SP in 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*This photocopied letter was found in the typescript of Letters Home held by the Lilly Library. The edges are faint; text appearing in < > is supplied by the editors.
*‘S. P’ is encircled. Although the photocopy is faint, the editors surmise SP spelled her last name.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*SP began living in Lawrence House, a co-operative house where she was required to work one hour per day for part of her room and board. SP lived there from September 1952 until her graduation from Smith College in June 1955.
*Mary Stuart Rae.
*Dorothea Eaglesfield Bridgman.
*A reference to a character in Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny (New York: Doubleday, 1951).
*During her third year at Smith College, SP completed English Unit (medieval literature) taught by Howard Patch; English Unit (modern poetry) taught by Elizabeth Drew; English 347 (creative writing) taught by Robert Gorham Davis; English 39b (Milton) taught by Eleanor Terry Lincoln; Physical Science 193 (world of atoms) taught by Kenneth Sherk.
*Olive Higgins Prouty to SP, 14 September 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*Art 11 was ‘An Historical Introduction to Art’.
*Kenneth Wayne Sherk (1907–62); professor of chemistry, Smith College; 1935–72; SP’s colleague 1957–8.
*Robert Gorham Davis (1908–98); English professor, Smith College, 1943–58. Davis taught studies in style and form (English 247), a creative writing course completed by SP, 1952–3. SP also served on Honor Board with Davis, 1952–3.
*Howard Rollin Patch (1889–1963); English professor, Smith College, 1919–57.
*Howard Rollin Patch, On Rereading Chaucer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948). SP’s signed copy now held by Lilly Library.
*Probably Eddie Cohen to SP, undated (c. September 1952); held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*A preprinted correspondence card left over from when SP lived at Haven House. SP crossed out Haven House and wrote in ‘Lawrence –’.
*Mary Anna Bonneville (1906–99).
*James DuBois McNeely (1933– ); B.A. 1954, B.Arch. 1960, Yale College; dated SP in 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark by Warren Plath.
*Robert Gorham Davis, ‘Hemingway’s Tragic Fisherman’, New York Times Book Review, 7 September 1952, 1, 20.
*Jane Auchincloss Truslow (1932–81); B.A. 1955, English, Smith College; SP’s housemate at Lawrence House. Truslow married SP’s friend Peter Davison on 7 March 1959.
*Twins Robert Gurdon Truslow (1936– ) and William Auchincloss Truslow (1936– ).
*Jour de Fête, a 1949 French comedy directed by Jacques Tati.
*‘Village with along with’ appears in the original.