by Sylvia Plath
*Probably Frances Yvonne White MacKenzie (1931–2007); B.A. 1953, law, Smith College; lived in Lawrence House.
*Probably Cynthia Morrow, of 15 Intervale Road, Wellesley. According to SP’s calendar, she drove with Warren to Exeter with ‘Cinny Morrow’ after Thanksgiving dinner. See also SP to Warren Plath, 4 December 1952.
*Robert Manson Myers, From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf: An Astounding and Wholly Unauthorized History of English Literature (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952). SP slightly misquotes the text, which reads: ‘Later William established the Futile System, with its intricate relationships between lord, vessel, serf, and villain. His greatest contribution, of course, was the Guilt System, an organization designed to encourage arts and graft’ (20).
*This quote is also from Myers’s book and serves as the epigraph to the chapter titled ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ (19).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Telegram and letter from Alice Thompson to SP, 3 October 1952; see SP’s publications scrapbook, pp. 31–2; held by Lilly Library. SP’s ‘Initiation’ won second prize in the Short Story Contest.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Initiation’, Seventeen 12 (January 1953), 64–5, 92–5, 98; won second prize in the Seventeen annual short story contest.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*See SP’s publication scrapbook; held by Lilly Library.
*Charles Shoop Gardner III (1932– ), 1955, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
*SP wrote a press release on the opening of a religious centre on campus that when printed, unattributed, included a photograph of four student leaders: ‘Faith Groups Open Center for Students’, Springfield Daily News, 6 October 1952, 26. A heavily edited, unattributed article on the opening was also published the next day: ‘Central Spot for Religion Groups At Smith’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 7 October 1952, 16.
*Nadine Neuburg Doughty (1934– ); B.A. 1955, sociology, Smith College.
*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 –’.
*Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75); author of Decameron (1353).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Community Chest Drive musical was Keep it Clean (1929).
*Roger Bradford Decker (1931–93); B.A. 1953, Princeton University; dated SP in 1952.
*Mary Ann Hemry (1935– ); resident of Wellesley and Dover, Mass.
*Filene’s was a department store chain with its flagship branch in Boston.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Possibly SP’s article on the Student–Faculty soccer game published concurrently in two newspapers: ‘Smith Girls Will Get Chance to Jeer Faculty’, Springfield Daily News, 27 October 1952, 30; and ‘Cheers, Jeers Promised for Smith Game’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 27 October 1952, 8.
*Senator William Ezra Jenner (1908–85) of Indiana. Jenner served on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.
*Senator Robert Alphonso Taft (1889–1953), of Ohio.
*Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), 34th President of the United States (1953–61).
*Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese drama directed by Akira Kurosawa.
*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’.
*Richard Norton to SP, 22 and 23 October 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*Franz Kafka, Selected Short Stories of Franz Kafka. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir; introduction by Philip Rahv (New York: Modern Library, 1952); SP’s annotated copy held by Smith College.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Margaret Dye Truitt, ‘Two Urgent Reasons For Electing Gen. Eisenhower President’, The Townsman, 23 October 1952, 10.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library, opened in 1948.
*The University Chapel, opened in 1928.
*Ray Brook State Tuberculosis Hospital, a sanatorium in Ray Brook, New York. Richard Norton was hospitalized at the New York State Hospital there, receiving treatment for tuberculosis, 1952–3.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘And Summer Will Not Come Again’.
*Peter Hersey (1934–2010); Princeton University 1956.
*Allen Balsbaugh (1934– ); Princeton University 1956.
*A reference to a comic strip character created by Walt Kelly who, in comics published in 1952 and 1956, was a presidential candidate.
*Henry B. Krajewski (1912–66), American politician.
*The House Appropriation Committee, which sets expenditure by the United States government.
*Possibly Richard Andrew Smyth (1933–2009); B.A. 1955, Yale College. From Milton, Mass., Smyth appears in SP’s calendar on 31 August 1952; his name appears several times in the entry for 1 September 1952.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably a reference to Christian Archibald Herter (1895–1966), the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts in 1952. Herter became the 59th Governor of Massachusetts (1953–7).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Robert Gorham Davis and his wife, the writer Hope Hale Davis (1903–2004), lived at 96 Maynard Road, Northampton, Mass.
*Robert Gorham Davis, ‘Then We’ll Set It Right’, 55 Short Stories from The New Yorker (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949). The story first appeared in the New Yorker, 28 August 1943, 18–22.
*Mademoiselle’s College Board editor, Marybeth Little.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Dennis Hartman to SP, undated (c. 19 November 1952); held by Lilly Library. Sylvia Plath, ‘Crossing the Equinox’, America Sings: Anthology of College Poetry (Los Angeles, Calif.: National Poetry Association, 1952), 14.
*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’.
*Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy (New York: Random House, 1950). SP’s copy held by Lilly Library.
*Myron Lotz (1932–99); B.S. 1954, Yale College; Henry Fellow, 1955–6, Oxford University; M.D. 1958, Yale University; intern at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 1958–9; dated SP, 1952–4.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Richard Norton to SP, 2 December 1952; held by Lilly Library. The story and poem are no longer with it.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Michael Lotz (1900–61) and Anastasia Lotz (1904–86).
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Sunday at the Mintons’’, Smith Review, Fall 1952, 3–9.
*American writer Frank Morrison Spillane (1918–2006).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Olive Higgins Prouty to SP, 6 December 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*Richard Norton to SP, 5 December 1952; Perry Norton to SP, 7 December 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*‘and but I went’ appears in the original.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*This photograph is on p.33 of SP’s Smith College scrapbook, held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Twelfth Night’, Seventeen 11 (December 1952), 75.
*Richard Norton to SP, 13 December 1952; held by Lilly Library.
*Richard Norton had written a letter to William Carlos Williams, asking to write a brief biographical sketch of the doctor-poet for the New England Journal of Medicine.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP plays on the poem ‘Break Break Break’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson which begins, ‘Break, break, break, / On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!’
*Date supplied from postmark.
*This photograph is on p. 33 of SP’s Smith College scrapbook, held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Sue Thompson with Dude Martin’s Round-up Band, ‘You Belong
to Me’ (1952).
*Dr William Sanford Lynn, Jr (1922– ) and his wife Mary Elisabeth Lynn (1925–2010). Dr Lynn was Richard Norton’s physician at Ray Brook.
*Edward FitzGerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
*William Langland, Piers Plowman.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*At the time Plath wrote this letter, the Rare Book Room was located on the first floor mezzanine (now the second level) of Neilson Library in what was called the ‘new’ library wing.
*Mary Ellen Chase lived at 16 Paradise Road, Northampton.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Initiation’, Seventeen 12 (January 1953), 64–5, 92–4; illustrated by Marjory Carolyn Clark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Dialogue’; held by Lilly Library.
*Performed at the Academy of Music, Northampton.
*A 1950 play by English playwright and theatre director John Van Druten (1901–57). Performed at the Court Square Theatre, Springfield, Mass., from 19–21 January 1953.
*Marcelle Thiébaux (1931– ); B.A. 1953, English, Smith College; M.A. 1955, University of Connecticut; Ph.D. 1962, Columbia University; professor of English, St John’s University, 1970–82; housemate of SP at Lawrence House.
*Shirley Baldwin Norton (1931–95); married to SP’s friend Perry Norton on 19 June 1954 (divorced 1978); mother of John Christopher, Steven Arthur, Heidi, and David Allan.
*Found between two papers written for Religion 14, which SP completed during the 1951–2 academic year. The papers are [‘Religious Beliefs’], undated, with caption ‘First paper: before course’ and ‘Religion As I See It’, 3 May 1952, with caption ‘Second paper: after course’. Norton refers to SP’s religion papers in ‘Individualism and Sylvia Plath: An Analysis and Synthesis’ included with Richard Norton to SP, 21 January 1953; held by Lilly Library. Norton quotes from ‘Religion as I See It’, pp. 3–4.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom’. Mademoiselle rejected the story on 11 March 1953.
*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’.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Coffee Shop, a restaurant at 56 Green Street, Northampton, Mass.
*Theodore Lotz (1928–86).
*Richard Norton, ‘Doctors Afield: William Carlos Williams’, New England Journal of Medicine 248 (2 April 1953), 604–5. See also Richard Norton to William Carlos Williams, 11 December 1952, and Norton to SP, 8 January 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*English 44b, Twentieth Century British Literature. Joyce, Yeats, Eliot.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Theodore Meyer Greene (1897–69); Master of Silliman College, Yale University (1947–53).
*Gordon Ames Lameyer (1930–91); B.A. 1953, Amherst College; dated SP 1953–5; travelled with SP in Europe, April 1956. Gordon Lameyer was encouraged to date SP by his mother Helen Ames Lameyer (1894–1980); B.A. 1918, Smith College. Lameyer’s father, Paul Lameyer (1885–1960), was an artist; during World War II he was interned at a camp for German-born US citizens by the FBI.
*SP spoke at the Smith College Club of Wellesley on 19 September 1952. She was to ‘describe some phase of college life including some of their extra-curricular activities’. From ‘Smith College Club Tea For Freshman And Undergraduates’, The Townsman, 18 September 1952, 16.
*Choate Rosemary Hall, a private college-preparatory school in Wallingford, Connecticut.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*These are: (1) Head of Student Council; (2) Judicial Board; (3) Honor Board; and (4) House of Representatives.
*Probably Richard Norton to SP, c. 3 February 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied by Lotz.
*Myron Lotz quoted SP’s letter, now lost, in his 9 February 1953 postcard to SP; see SP’s Smith College scrapbook, p. 34; held by Lilly Library.
*Myron Lotz to Sylvia Plath, postmarked 9 February 1953; see SP’s Smith College scrapbook, p. 34; held by Lilly Library.
*Probably a reference to and modification of the final couplet of Alexander Pope’s ‘The Dying Christian to his Soul’: ‘O Grave! where is thy victory? / O Death! where is thy sting?’
*Dorothy Parker, Death and Taxes (New York: Viking Press, 1931).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Probably Dr Paul Willard Hugenberger (1903–96).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*According to SP’s calendar, on 20 February 1953 she wrote ‘Villanelle – To Eva’ [‘To Eva Descending the Stair’] and on 21 February 1953, she wrote ‘Villanelle – Mad Girl’s Love Song’ [‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’] and ‘Doomsday’. Based on comments in SP to ASP, 23 February 1953, SP probably enclosed ‘To Eva Descending the Stair’ and ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ with this letter. A typescript copy of ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ held by Lilly Library includes the following note typed at the top: ‘this one had the honor of being inspired by one myron lotz . . . ’
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Erwin D. Canham (1904–82), editor of the Christian Science Monitor, was the speaker at Rally Day in 1953. His talk was on ‘The Chances for Peace’.
*Likely, a reference to the Elizabeth Mason Infirmary at Smith College where Plath was treated by Dr O. Donald Chrisman (1917–2002), a Northampton orthopedist who maintained private clinic hours at the Elizabeth Mason Infirmary.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Probably Richard Norton to SP, 23 February 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*Robert Kent Modlin (1932– ); B.S. 1954, Yale College, M.D. 1957, Yale Medical School. Modlin married Jill Rae Garvin (1933– ) in 1952; the Modlins were friends of Myron Lotz.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*SP’s dress is held by the Historic Clothing Department, Smith College.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Ideal Summer’; held by Lilly Library.
*Richard Norton to SP, c. 25 February 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*Probably Anne Yamrick, a fellow patient at the TB sanatorium.
*The other secretary was Anabel Carey.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Probably Sylvia Plath, ‘Edith Sitwell and the Development of Her Poetry’; held by Lilly Library.