The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 175
*The Third Annual Boston Arts Festival on the Public Garden opened on 6 June 1954, and ran for two weeks.
*Performed by dancer Sophie Maslow and her New Dance Group, the programme included ‘The Village I Knew’, ‘Folksay’, and ‘Manhattan Suite’.
*Perry Norton married Shirley Baldwin on 19 June 1954, Branford College Chapel, Yale University. See wedding invitation held by Lilly Library.
*Rio Escondido (‘Hidden River’), a 1948 film directed by Emilio Fernández and starring Maria Félix, played at 5:30, 7:30, and 9:30 that day at the Brattle Theatre.
*Dylan Thomas, ‘Under Milk Wood’ (1954).
*A character in James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake.
*Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake.
*Padraic Colum (1881–1972), Irish poet, novelist, and dramatist; Joseph Campbell (1904–87), American mythologist writer, and lecturer; and James Joyce. A reference to the LP recording of Finnegan’s Wake: Meeting of the Joyce Society at the Gotham Book Mart, October 23, 1951 (New York: Folkways Records, 1951).
*Paul Darrow, ‘the sea wind roared like an avalanche of demons . . . the sea wind, screaming like a tortured, living creature . . . like an avenging soul . . . like’, New York Times Book Review, 15 March 1953, 2.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Helen M. Churchill (1903–99).
*Arthur J. Geissler (1933–2013); B.B.A. 1954, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
*Macey Gerson Feingold.
*The enclosure is no longer with the letter.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Harold and Ann Young, and their son Sheldon, who lived at 187 Somerset Avenue, Winthrop, Mass.
*Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake.
*Joyce, Ulysses: ‘Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.’
*According to SP’s calendar, Sue Hitchcock lived in Pound Ridge, New York. SP’s Smith College scrapbook says, ‘tramping miles up Nauset, introducing Sue Hitchcock (discovered by “The Outermost House”) and brother W[arren]’ (p. 64).
*Camp Tonset in Orleans, Massachusetts,was a boys’ sailing camp 1949–72.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Joan Elizabeth Smith (1934– ); B.A. 1956, government, Smith College.
*SP sublet apartment 4, Bay State Apartments, 1572 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Mass.
*The photograph is no longer with the letter.
*The Lameyers lived at 24 Linden Street, Wellesley.
*Ann Doreen Burnham; schoolmate of SP, class of 1951; B.A. 1955, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Wanda Alexandra Landowska (1879–1959), Polish harpsichordist.
*Gordon Lameyer to SP, 29 June 1954; held by Lilly Library.
*Rudolph King (1887–1961), member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; House Speaker; and Registrar of Motor Vehicles.
*Sinclair Lewis, Babbit (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1950). SP’s copy held by Lilly Library.
*According to SP’s calendar, she saw Knock on Wood (1954) in Dennis, Mass., on 1 July 1954.
*A mixed summer camp, in operation 1938–79, on Little Pleasant Bay in South Orleans, Mass.
*Latvian-born American painter Hyman Bloom (1913–2000).
*Russian artist Pavlov Tchelitchew (1898–1957).
*Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944).
*According to SP’s Smith College scrapbook, they sublet from David H. Neiditz and Joseph A. Novak; held by Lilly Library.
*American intellectual historian Howard Mumford Jones (1892–1980).
*Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Diary of a Writer (New York: G. Braziller, 1954); SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*The number was incomplete on the letter.
*Hart Crane, The Collected Poems of Hart Crane, Black and Gold edition (New York: Liveright, 1946).
*D. H. Lawrence, The Man Who Died (1929).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Edwin James Akutowicz (1922–2007), A.M. Harvard, 1946; Ph.D. Harvard, 1947; a mathematician; dated SP 1954–5. SP recorded: ‘A cool study, beer and intrigue provided by assistant physics professor Edwin Akutowicz at M.I.T., and a casserole of life, love & learning –’ in her Smith College scrapbook (p. 62); held by Lilly Library.
*R. M. O’Clair; a letter from O’Clair to SP, 24 July 1954, held by Lilly Library. In the letter he acknowledges SP’s letter dated 20 July 1954.
*Matthew Arnold, ‘Dover Beach’, New Poems (1867).
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way (1913); SP’s copy (New York: Modern Library, 1928) held by Smith College.
*Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel (New York: Modern Library, 1929); SP’s copy held by Lilly Library.
*William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930); SP’s copy (New York: Modern Library, 1946) held by Smith College.
*E. E. Cummings, The Enormous Room (1922); SP’s copy (New York: Modern Library, 1934) held by Emory University.
*The Chords, ‘Sh-Boom’ (1954); covered by The Crew Cuts.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Born Katherine Laverne Starks, Kay Starr (1922–2016), American pop and jazz singer.
*Kay Starr, ‘If You Love Me (Really Love Me)’ (1954).
*SP’s college scrapbook refers to Father Delair as a ‘young Jesuit Priest’, who was probably in her German summer school class. According to SP’s calendar, she met Delair and others as planned in the letter on 13 August 1954 for a buffet dinner, and on 20 August for coffee at the ‘College Inn’, formerly at 1200 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Mass. SP had plans for dinner on the 23rd, but crossed through the appointment. SP also spells his name as ‘Dallaire’ in her calendar.
*W. B. Yeats, ‘Among School Children’, The Tower (1928).
*Probably Dr George E. Heels, a physician and obstetrician in Cambridge, Mass.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was Jeanne Woods.
*Probably Robert McGowan, who lived at 27 Elmwood Road, Wellesley.
*Reese Thornton, Lameyer’s fellow ensign.
*SP added this by hand on the second page of the letter.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Gordon Lameyer to SP, 9 August 1954; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably Salinger’s Nine Stories (New York: New American Library, 1954) and McCullers’s The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Collected Short Stories (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951). SP’s copy of Nine Stories is held by Smith College.
*‘Man’s Right Place’, Christian Science Monitor, 28 August 1954, 8. Translated into French ‘La vraie place de l’Homme’ and German ‘Des Menschen rechter Platz’.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Hurricane Carol, which made landfall on Old Saybrook, Connecticut on 31 August 1954.
*William H. Cruickshank, Jr (1925–2015). William H. and Dorinda Pell Cruickshank lived next door to the Plath family at 24 Elmwood Road, Wellesley, with their four children: Dorinda, Pell, Blair, and Cara.
*Kathleen Quinn Camin (1935–96); B.A. 1957, government, Smith College.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*During her last year at Smith College, SP completed English (thesis) taught by George Gibian; English 36 (Shakespeare) taught by Esther Cloudman Dunn; English 347 (short-story writing) taught by Alfred Kazin; English 417b (twentieth-century novel) taught by Alfred Kazin; English (review unit) taught by Evelyn Page; English 41b (special studies in poetry writing) taught by Alfred Young Fisher; and German 12 (intermediate German) taught by Marion Sonnenfeld.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Marion Sonnenfeld (1928–99).
*Paul Gerald Graham taught German 26, An Introduction to the Classical Literature of the Eighteenth Century.
*Harry Tuchman Levin (1912–94), American literary critic and scholar of modernism and comparative literature.
*Gordon Lameyer referred to a ship called the J. P. Perry in a letter to SP, 3 June 1955; no US Navy ship of that name can be identified, however. Lameyer served on the USS Perry.
*Probably Reuben A. Brower (1908–75), Cabot Professor of English Literature at Harvard University. Served as master of Adams House.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Lynne Trowbridge Salisbury (1936–2008); B.A. 1957, history, Smith College.
*Gordon Lameyer to SP, 23 September 1954; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sent to ASP, c/o New England Medical Center, Bennett Street, Boston.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Kathleen Preston Knight (1936–2013); B.A. 1958, sociology and anthropology, Smith College.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Possibly ‘Wie Ich Einmal Mein Kleinen Bruder Neckte’; held by Lilly Library.
*Cassell’s New German and English Dictionary: With a Phonetic Key to Pronunciation (New York: Funk and Wagnall’s, 1939); SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*John A. Dugger (1924–2014); see Gordon Lameyer to SP, 29 [October] 1954; held by Lilly Library. The original letter was misdated by Lameyer as of 29 November 1954.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Probably Ann Doney Roen (1933– ); B.A. 1955, art, Smith College.
*Tenny House, a cooperative residential house for Smith College students, at 156 Elm Street, Northampton.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Otto Rank, ‘Der Doppelgänger’, Imago 3 (1914), 97–164.
*Probably Richard L. Linden, a 1948 graduate of the Bradford High School in Wellesley. Linden reported to the destroyer USS Perry on 24 December 1953.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1952); SP’s copy, received for Christmas 1953; held by Smith College. The part to which she refers is chapter 18, section 3.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*SP read to William Dodge Gray (1878–1958), who lived at 22 Round Hill, Northampton; professor of history, Smith College, 1907–46.
*According to SP’s calendar, on this day she met Daniel Aaron from 4–5 p.m. Daniel Aaron (1912–2016); English professor, Smith College, 1939–72; director of the freshman English course (English 11) taught by SP, 1957–8.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Hurricane Hazel made landfall in North Carolina on 15 October 1954 and progressed towards Massachusetts that day.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was John Stamper.
*‘and rethink that I can write’ appears in the original.
*Alfred Kazin (1915–98); William Allan Neilson Research Professor, Smith College, 1954–5. Kazin taught short story writing (English 347) and the twentieth-century novel (English 417) completed by SP, 1954–5.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Neilson Professor’, Smith Alumnae Quarterly, Fall 1954, 12.
*Ira O. Scott, Jr (1918–2002), American; instructor at Harvard University, 1953–5; dated SP, summer 1954.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Probably a reference to T. S. Eliot, ‘Ash Wednesday’ I, 6.
*Probably a reference to Andrew Marvell, ‘To His Coy Mistress’.
*A reference to Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in the 1939 cinematic adaptation of Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (1936).
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sara Murray Jordan, Good Food for Bad Stomachs: 500 Delicious and Nutritious Recipes for Sufferers from Ulcers and Other Digestive Disturbances (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1951).
*See Lameyer mss; held by Lilly Library. Photographs were taken at Mount Monadnock, NH, on 17 July 1954 and Chatham, Mass., on 24 July 1954.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*See Gordon Lameyer to SP, 29 [October] 1954; held by Lilly Library. The original letter was misdated by Lameyer as of 29 November 1954.
*See Gordon Lameyer to SP, undated [c. 2 November 1954] which begins: ‘At the end of a most exhausting day . . . ’; held by Lilly Library.
*Mary Ellen Chase, The White Gate (New York: W. W. Norton, 1954).
*American reporter and war correspondent Marguerite Higgins Hall (1920–66).
*Wilder spoke at Smith College on 26 April 1955.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Susan Weller Burch (1933–90); B.A. 1956, economics, Smith College; B.A. 1958, philosophy, politics, and economics, Somerville College, Oxford; SP’s housemate at Lawrence House.
*LaFleur Airport opened in April 1929 and is now called Northampton Airport. It is at 160 Old Ferry Road, Northampton.
*Storer B. Lunt of W. W. Norton and the illustrator Nora S. Unwin.
*Chase, The White Gate; SP’s copy held by Smith College with inscription: ‘For Sylvia Plath, my fellow student and friend, with all good wishes and my love. Mary Ellen Chase’.
*Eleanor Shipley Duckett (1880–1976); professor of Latin, Smith College, 1916–49.
*Helen Louise Russell (1914–2005); professor of physical education (1944–54), warden (1954–6), dean of students (1956–79), Smith College.
*Jon Kimmel Rosenthal (1932– ); B.A. 1954, Amherst College; M.C.P. 1960, Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture & Planning; Ed.M. 1971, Harvard Graduate School of Education; U.S. Army 1954–6, roommate of Robert Riedeman at Fort Dix Army Base, New Jersey; dated SP, 1954–5.
*Anthony, a hairdresser’s, then at 93 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston. According to SP’s calendar, she had her hair dyed and cut on 18 September 1954.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Cyrilly Abels to SP, 8 November 1954; held by Lilly Library.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Parallax’. SP had submitted ‘Triad of Love Lyrics’ (later published as ‘Trio of Love Songs’) to Mademoiselle. SP’s honourable mention was printed in Mademoiselle, January 1955, 73; the collegiate winner that year was American poet Linda Pastan (1932– ). ‘Parallax’ never appeared in Mademoiselle.