by Sylvia Plath
*Date supplied from postmark.
*See Richard Norton to SP, 3 March 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*SP excerpted this letter in her journals.
*William Sanford ‘Sandy’ Lynn, III (1948–53); died by accidental strangulation on 4 March 1953. See Richard Norton to SP, 4, 6 and 7 March 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*See SP’s Smith College scrapbook, p. 34; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Dr George Gilmore.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Frank O’Connor, ‘And It’s A Lonely, Personal Art’, New York Times Book Review, 12 April 1953, 1, 34.
*Probably Stories of Frank O’Connor (New York: Knopf, 1952).
*Harvard Summer School in fact began on 6 July 1953.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*New Directions in Prose and Poetry 14 (New York: New Directions, 1953).
*James Joyce, Dubliners (New York: Modern Library [c. 1926]); SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*Sigmund Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (New York: Modern Library [c. 1938]); SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*Date supplied from postmark by Warren Plath.
*Martha England, ‘Le Voyage d’Urien’ (9–49); as well as two former Smith professors, Ben L. Reid, ‘The Tower’ (54–67) and Oskar Seidlin, ‘Hermann Hesse’ (109–31).
*Edith Sitwell, ‘The Wind’s Bastinado’; SP slightly misquotes: ‘It is my friend King Pharaoh’s head / That nodding blew out of the Pyramid . . . ’
*Edith Sitwell, ‘Fox Trot (Old Sir Faulk)’; SP does not include the line break after ‘mome / With . . . ‘
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Suitcases Are Packed Again’, Seventeen 12 (March 1953), 91.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Carnival Nocturne’, Seventeen 12 (April 1953), 127. No poem by SP appears in the May issue. Seventeen purchased ‘Sonnet to a Dissembling Spring’ in March 1953 but it never appeared in the magazine.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Auden’s lecture was on ‘Some Reflections of the Comic’ and took place in Sage Hall at 8 p.m.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Trio of Love Songs’, Collected Poems.
*‘Exit Flower from the heart’ appears in the original.
*Panda Prints birthday card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Marybeth Little.
*‘Art and Morals’ was a symposium held at Smith College on 23–4 April.
*American literary critic and writer Lionel Trilling (1905–75).
*American poet Allen Tate (1899–1979).
*French-American historian Jacques Barzun (1907–2012).
*American Philosopher George Boas (1891–1980).
*Lithuanian-born American artist, muralist, social activist, photographer, and teacher Ben Shahn (1898–1969).
*American poet Archibald MacLeish (1892–1992).
*Sociology 32a, b. 32a: ‘Theory of social disorganization; delinquency; crime; and related problems. Psychology 11a and b or 12 may be offered as prerequisite. Th F S 9. Mr DeNood’; and 32b ‘Family disorganization; mental deficiency and pathology; and related problems. Optional field trip. Psychology 11a and b or 12 may be offered as prerequisite. Th F S 9. Mr DeNood’ (124).
*Neal Breaule DeNood (1904–72), professor of sociology and anthropology, Smith College, 1937–68.
*Psychology 37b, ‘Study of the psychological organization of the adult personality, with emphasis upon individuality rather than generalized human nature. Basic concepts and theories; experimental and clinical techniques of investigation; development of adult personality-structure. Open to sophomores by permission of the instructor. M T W 10. Miss Siipola’ (117).
*Elsa Margareeta Siipola (1908–83). SP’s calendar for 1953 indicates she met Siipola on 17 and 20 April 1953.
*American art historian, author, and editor of Harper’s Magazine, Russell Lynes (1910– 91).
*Russell Lynes to SP, 27 April 1953 in SP’s publications scrapbook; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Doomsday’, Harper’s 208 (May 1954), 29; ‘To Eva Descending the Stair’, Harper’s 209 (September 1954), 63; and ‘Go Get the Goodly Squab’, Harper’s 209 (November 1954), 47.
*The stories were: ‘And Summer Will Not Come Again’ (August 1950); ‘Den of Lions’ (May 1951); ‘The Perfect Set-Up’ (December 1952); and ‘Initiation’ (January 1953). The poems were: ‘Ode to a Bitten Plum’ (November 1950); ‘Twelfth Night’ (October 1952); ‘The Suitcases Are Packed Again’ (March 1953); and ‘Carnival Nocturne’ (April 1953). The fifth poem, ‘Sonnet to a Dissembling Spring’, was not published.
*The two essays were: ‘Rewards of a New England Summer’ (12 September 1950) and ‘As a Baby-Sitter Sees It’ (6 & 7 November 1951). The three poems were: ‘Bitter Strawberries’ (11 August 1950), ‘White Phlox’ (27 August 1952), and ‘Riverside Reveries’ (9 September 1952). Plath did not include ‘Youth’s Plea for World Peace’ which she co-authored with Perry Norton while a senior in high school (16 March 1950).
*Edwin Arlington Robinson, ‘Miniver Cheevy’ (1910).
*Panda Prints birthday card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*This phrase is typed by SP.
*Probably the unattributed ‘Literary Speakers Mark Symposium at Smith College’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 24 April 1953, 1, 12.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘I Lied for Love’; held by Lilly Library.
*The Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize is ‘awarded annually for the poem adjudged best by a committee appointed by the Department of English. The competition is open to all undergraduates except those who have already won the prize; the poem submitted may not have been printed previously.’
*The 1952 winner of the Babcock poetry prize was Patience Mather Cleveland (1931– 2004); B.A. 1952, theatre, Smith College.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Edgar Wind (1900–71); professor of philosophy and art, Smith College, 1948–55.
*SP started typing her poem ‘Parallax’ on this paper, but got no further than the first line.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Dialogue En Route’.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Eleanor Terry Lincoln (1903–94); English professor, Smith College 1934–68; SP’s colleague, 1957–8; SP completed English 39b (Milton) taught by Lincoln in 1953.
*Frances Bragg (1908–2016).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Russell Lynes to SP, 27 April 1953 in SP’s publications scrapbook; held by Lilly Library.
*The last two lines of SP’s ‘Sonnet to a Dissembling Spring’ are: ‘Again we are deluded and infer / That somehow we are younger than we were.’
*Carol Koch Kaufman (1933– ); B.A. 1955, English, Smith College.
*Bard Hall is a residential building at 50 Haven Street, New York.
*Le Petite Maison, a French restaurant. Possibly at 108 E. 60th Street, New York.
*Performed at the Martin Beck Theatre, at 302 W. 45th Street, New York.
*Hotel Delmonico, then at Park Avenue and 59th Street, New York.
*The New York City Opera Company’s performance of Carmen; performed at the City Center, 131 W. 55th Street, New York.
*The Gloucester House was at 59 W. 51st Street, New York.
*Camino Real was performed at the National Theatre, then at 208 W. 41st Street, New York.
*SP slightly misquotes the play: ‘The Camino Real is a funny paper read backwards’ (114).
*The New York Presbyterian Hospital, 722 W. 168th Street, New York.
*See SP’s Smith College scrapbook, pp. 28–31; held by Lilly Library.
*American writer J. D. (Jerome David) Salinger (1919–2010); The Catcher in the Rye (New York: Little, Brown, 1951).
*American writer Shirley Jackson (1916–65); her ‘The Lottery’, New Yorker, 26 June 1948.
*American writer E. B. (
Elwyn Brooks) White (1899–1985).
*American playwright Irwin Shaw (1913–84).
*The Barbizon Hotel for Women was at Lexington Avenue and E. 63rd Street, New York.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Chiaroscuro and Counterpoint’; held by Lilly Library.
*Ring Round the Moon is a 1950 adaptation by Christopher Fry of Jean Anouilh’s Invitation to the Castle (1947). SP covered the play for Press Board, ‘Smith College Play Delights ’Hamp Audience’, Springfield Union, 15 May 1953, 31.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Austrian-born Junior Enlists in Women’s Marine Corp, “Can’t Wait to Get There”’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 16 May 1953, 2. The article was on Antoinette Willard.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Laughton Holds Audience Spellbound With Readings’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 6 May 1953, 3.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Timothy Dwight College, Yale University.
*Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–53). Thomas read on Wednesday 20 May 1953 at Amherst College.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Many Area Students Are Among the 464 Who Will Get Smith Degrees on June 8’, Daily Hampshire Gazette, 20 May 1953, 8.
*In the margin SP wrote ‘10:15 quiet hour’; at this point the letter goes from being typewritten to handwritten.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*‘only want make me want to affirm’ appears in the original.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Poets on Campus’, Mademoiselle 37 (August 1953), 290–1; discussed William Burford, Anthony Hecht, Alastair Reid, George Steiner, and Richard Wilbur.
*Lydia Davis (1947– ) and Stephen H. Davis.
*Auden’s speech, ‘Balaam and His Ass’, was given in Sage Hall at 8:00 p.m.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973).
*The interview took place in the house belonging to American writer May Sarton at 14 Wright Street, Cambridge, Mass. To prepare for the interview, SP checked out The Death of the Heart (1938), Seven Winters (1942), Ivy Gripped the Steps (1946), and Early Stories (1951) from the Neilson Library. Smith College holds the borrower’s cards for several of these books with ‘S. Plath ’54’ listed as a borrower.
*SP won the Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize and the Ethel Olin Corbin Prize. The Corbin prize is ‘awarded for the best original poem (preferably blank verse, sonnet or ballad) or informal essay by an undergraduate’.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*All dates and activities in SP’s June 1953 letters obtained from her calendar and Mademoiselle materials; held by Lilly Library.
*SP’s room number was 1511.
*American writer Carson McCullers (1917–67).
*Polly Weaver Crone (1900–2003); B.A. 1922, English, Smith College.
*Betsy Talbot Blackwell (1905–85); editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle, 1937–71.
*The Drake Room was a restaurant in the Drake Hotel, 432 Park Avenue, New York.
*Cyrilly Abels (1904–85); managing editor of Mademoiselle, 1950–early 1960s.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Poets on Campus’.
*On 2 June 1953; the Roosevelt Hotel, 45 E. 45th Street, New York.
*The Oyster Bar is a restaurant in Grand Central Station at 89 E. 42nd Street, New York.
*Madelyn Mathers (1931– ); University of Washington.
*Anita Myers Luery (1930–2003); B.A. 1952, English, Smith College.
*Elizabeth Bowen, ‘The Technique of the Novel’, given on 26 May 1953, at 4:30 p.m., at the Boston University College of General Education, 785 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, at a meeting held at the Boston University Graduate English Club.
*Child’s Restaurant had a branch at 604 Fifth Avenue, New York.
*On 18 June 1953; John Frederics Hats was at 29 E. 48th Street, New York.
*On 18 June 1953; United Nations, 760 United Nations Plaza, New York.
*On 22 June 1953; The New York Herald Tribune, 230 W. 41st Street, New York.
*On 17 June 1953; Let’s Do It Again at 729 Seventh Avenue, New York.
*On 11 June 1953; City Center Ballet at 131 W. 55th Street, New York. Performed that night were The Duel, Scotch Symphony, Illuminations, and Metamorphoses.
*On 23 June 1953; at the Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th Street, New York. Misalliance (1910), a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950).
*On 9 June 1953; Herb Shriner’s television show Two for the Money, which ran in 1952–7. Herbert Arthur Shriner (1918–70), American television host. The location was the International Artists Studio, at W. 58th Street and 8th Avenue, New York.
*On 10 June 1953; St Regis Hotel, 2 E. 55th Street, New York.
*On 2 June 1953; Richard Hudnut Salon, 693 Fifth Avenue, New York. American businessman and cosmetics manufacturer Richard Hudnut (1855–1929).
*English writer Margaret Rumer Godden (1907–98).
*English playwright Sir Noël Peirce Coward (1899–1973).
*Laura Totten (1932– ); B.A. 1954, Syracuse University. Totten lived at 82 Pilgrim Road, Wellesley.
*Possibly Olive Higgins Prouty to SP, 29 May 1953; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Mlle’s Last Word on College, ’53’, Mademoiselle 37 (August 1953), 235.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*This photograph appears on p. 54 of the August issue with the caption: ‘On the St. Regis Roof, Anne [Shawber], Sylvia and dates hold before-dinner confab’. See SP’s Smith College Scrapbook, p. 38; held by Lilly Library.
*Anne Shawber (1931– ); B.A. 1953, Northwestern University.
*Jones Beach State Park, on Long Island, New York.
*Indian-American writer (1923–2009).
*American writer Vance Bourjaily (1922–2010).
*American poet and editor Paul Engle (1908–91). Engle was editor of the O. Henry Prize Stories, 1954–9.
*American actor and radio personality Arthur Ford (1921–2006).
*American ballerina Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief (1925–2013).
*Paris-born dancer Tanaquil LeClercq (1929–2000).
*Igor Karmiloff (1925– ); a simultaneous interpreter for the United Nations. Also known as Gary, Kamirloff lived at the time in a twelfth-floor flat at 95 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Kamirloff stayed with the Norton family 25–7 April 1952 during a UN Secretariat weekend hosted by the Wellesley League of Women Voters. According to SP’s calendar, she met Kamirloff for dinner (Italian) and visited his ‘penthouse’ on 16 June 1953; and after a tour of the UN for coffee on the 18th.