The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 176
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Dmitrij Tschižewskij (1894–1977); professor of Slavic studies, Harvard University, 1949–56. In the Harvard University Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer for the years 1948–57, Tschižewskij’s name is printed as ‘Dmitry Cizevsky’.
*William Henry Davidow (1935– ); A.B. 1957, M.S. 1958, Dartmouth College; M.S. (electrical engineering) 1959, California Institute of Technology; Ph.D. (electrical engineering) 1961, Stanford University.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Francis Millet Rogers (1914–89); Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 1949–55; Professor of Romance Language; Chairman of the Selection Committee of the Region for the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was Pat Tschižewskij.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*SP has handwritten this in the left margin of the first page.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit’, Smith Review (Spring 1955), 19–21.
*Ann Birstein (1927– ); Kazin’s third wife; author of Star of Glass (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1950); her second novel was The Troublemaker (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1955).
*Probably Rainer Maria Rilke, Der ausgewählten Gedichte erster Teil (1954); SPs copy held by Smith College and inscribed on flyleaf.
*SP’s diary records seeing Laurence Olivier’s film version of Henry V on 28 April 1946 at the Esquire Theatre, then at 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston.
*Jocelyn Arundel Sladen (1930– ); B.A. 1952, French, Smith College. Denise Musnik (1951–90); B.A. 1952, government, Smith College.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘In the Mountains’ and ‘Circus in Three Rings’, Smith Review (Fall 1954), 2–5, 18.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*American playwright Maxwell Anderson, The Bad Seed; adapted from William March’s novel of the same name. The play, starring Patricia ‘Patty’ McCormack, was performed beginning 8 December 1954, at the 46th Street Theatre, 226 W. 46th Street, New York.
*SP was at Steuben’s; the experience became the subject of her poem ‘Item: Stolen, One Suitcase’.
*Panda Prints Christmas card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Amelia (Amy) Remondelli Gardner (1934– ), B.A. 1990, American studies, Smith College. Remondelli matriculated with the class of 1956 at Smith College, but left to marry Charles S. Gardner, III. She returned to campus as an Ada Comstock scholar and graduated in 1990.
*SP plays off of W. B. Yeats, ‘A Coat’.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*American fashion designer Anne Fogarty (1919–80).
*SP’s calendar indicates she called Pauline C. Walker on the same date this letter was written. Pauline C. Walker (1902–95), Assistant Secretary to the President and the Board of Trustees, 1937–68.
*‘poet & playwright of John Ford’ appears in the original.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Social Life Without Sororities: A Profile of Smith College’; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*William Herbert Sheldon, Psychology and the Promethean Will: A Constructive Study of the Acute Common Problem of Education, Medicine, and Religion (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936). SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*The Coonamessett Inn, 311 Gifford Street, Falmouth, Mass.
*According to SP’s calendar these poems were: ‘Ballade Banale’, ‘Item: Stolen, One Suitcase’, ‘Morning in the Hospital Solarium’, ‘New England Winter Without Snow’, and ‘Harlequin Love Song’. The first four SP dates to 8 January 1955, and on 9 January 1955 she wrote ‘Harlequin Love Song’ and rewrote ‘Ballade Banale’. SP sent seven poems to the New Yorker on 9 January 1955.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Peter Hubert Davison (1928–2004), American poet, assistant editor at Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1953–5; assistant to the director at Harvard University Press, 1955–6; editor at the Atlantic Monthly Press, 1956–85; dated SP in 1955. Davison married SP’s Smith housemate Jane Truslow in 1959; father of Edward Angus and Lesley Truslow.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘The Smoky Blue Piano’; held by Lilly Libary. SP first sent the story to the Ladies’ Home Journal on 28 December 1954. Her re-write was rejected by 2 February 1955.
*Probably SP’s ‘Arts in America’; held by Lilly Library.
*The story to which SP refers might be ‘Tongues of Stone’, which according to her calendar she re-wrote by 28 January 1955.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Gate of Hell, Japanese film directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1953, played at the Guild Theatre, then at 33 W. 50th Street, New York.
*S. Ansky, The Dybbuk (1914), trans. Henry G. Alsberg. This adaptation starred Morris Carnovsky, Lou Gilbert, and Miriam Elyas, was directed by David Ross, and performed at the 4th Street Theatre, 83 E. 4th Street, New York, 23 January 1955.
*The Passion of Joan of Arc, silent French film originally titled La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928.
*Le Gourmet, a restaurant then at 49 W. 55th Street, New York.
*Café Saint Denis, a restaurant then at 11 E. 53rd Street, New York.
*Le Veau d’Or is a restaurant at 129 E. 60th Street, New York.
*Panda Prints card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Gordon Lameyer to SP, ‘sunday nite’; held by Lilly Library.
*A reference to Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2.
*Probably Franz Kafka’s short story ‘In the Penal Colony’ (1919).
*Dean Francis M. Rogers to SP, 26 January 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*‘about my chances and failings’ appears in the original.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Home is Where the Heart Is’.
*Since 1949, the Christopher Awards are annual awards given for creative works that ‘affirm the highest values of the human spirit’.
*Possibly Sylvia Plath, ‘Tomorrow Begins Today’.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Marcia Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom’; SP’s calendar indicates she finished this story on 27 December 1954. Previously, SP wrote a story called ‘Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom’ which she submitted to Mademoiselle in early 1953.
*Cyrilly Abels to SP, 18 January 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Dorrit Licht Hildebrandt Colf (1934– ); B.A. 1955, music, Smith College; SP’s friend. SP attended Licht’s wedding at the First Presbyterian Church, Mount Vernon, New York, to Frederick Dean Hildebrandt (1933–2010) on 26 March 1955 (divorced); married Howard D. Colf on 14 June 1965.
*According to SP’s calendar, she completed ‘Temper of Time’ and ‘Winter Words’ on 1 February 1955, and ‘Apparel for April’ on 2 February 1955.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably Bernice Brown Cronkhite (1893–1983), Dean of the Graduate School (1934– 59). SP was admitted to Radcliffe Graduate School for the fall of 1955 to work towards a Ph.D. in English; see Bernice Brown Cronkhite to SP, 23 May 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*SP served as maid of honour at Ruth Freeman’s wedding to Arthur Geissler on 11 June 1955, at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, Winthrop, Mass.
*According to SP’s calendar, she wrote ‘Dirge’ [‘Lament’] on 4 February 1955; ‘Elegy’, ‘Complaint’ and ‘Notes on Zarathustra’ on 6 February 1955; ‘The Dream’ on 7 February 1955; and ‘Prologue to Spring’ on 9 February 1955.
*Robert Smith Shea (c. 1922–2001); a member of the United States Consulate in Tangier, Morocco, a former member of administration at Xavier University and the Commission for Human Rights. Educated at St Bo
naventure University, Tulane University, and Columbia University.
*Mabel R. Raguse (1892–1993), English teacher at the Alice L. Phillips Junior High School, where SP was enrolled 1944–7.
*Panda Prints Valentine card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Gordon Lameyer to SP, either 25 or 31 January 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*Ruth Louisa Cohen (1906–91); Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, 1954–72.
*Christine Abbott, Newnham College Secretary to SP, 19 February 1955, answers this letter; held by Lilly Library.
*Probably a retained copy of SP’s letter.
*Ruth Cohen to SP, 27 January 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*From Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, line 1.
*Printed under the heading ‘Many happy returns’, Mademoiselle, March 1955, 64.
*Donald Hall, ‘Valentine’, Mademoiselle, February 1955, 121.
*Raymond Peynet, ‘The Path of Love’, Mademoiselle, February 1955, 144–5.
*Bryan MacMahon, ‘O, Lonely Moon!’, Mademoiselle, February 1955, 164–5, 211–16.
*Dylan Thomas, ‘The Vest’, Mademoiselle, February 1955, 142–3.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*The Amherst Masquers performed Othello at the Kirby Memorial Theater in Amherst, 24 February–1 March 1955. SP’s friend Elinor Friedman played the role of Emilia.
*Elinor Linda Friedman Klein (1934– ); B.A. 1956, Smith College; SP’s friend; Friedman lived at 704 Laurel Street Longmeadow, Mass.
*Smith College hosted a two-day symposium called ‘The American Novel at Mid-Century’. Kazin spoke on ‘The Novelist and the Unknown’.
*Saul Bellow (1915–2005), Canadian-American author; Nobel laureate.
*Brendan Gill (1914–97), American writer, especially for New Yorker.
*Cyrilly Abels to SP, 1 March 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*According to SP’s calendar, she attended a party for Eleanor Duckett’s Saint Dunstan of Canterbury: A Study of Monastic Reform in the Tenth Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955). SP’s copy held by Smith College.
*Sylvia Plath, ‘Wayfaring at the Whitney’, comprising: ‘“Kafka” by Sahl Swarz’, ‘“Daedalus and Icarus” by Lindsay Daen’, and ‘“Three Caryatids Without a Portico” by Hugh Robus’.
*Dated 9 March 1955. See also Cyrilly Abels to SP, 9 March 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*Founded in 1878, Lady Margaret Hall is a college at Oxford University, for women only until 1979.
*Roberta Teale Swartz Chalmers (1903–93); wife of Gordon Keith Chalmers (1905–56), president of Kenyon College 1937–56.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*According to SP’s calendar, this was Chris Buxton.
*Scottish poet Edward Lewis Davison (1898–1970).
*Le Champlain.
*Robert Anderson, Tea and Sympathy, director Elia Kazan, Longacre Theatre, New York, 25 March 1955.
*Carl E. Licht.
*Probably Charles Acker Jr; B.A. 1954, Dartmouth College.
*Probably Patience Plummer Barnes (1932– ); B.A. 1954, government, Smith College.
*Gian Carlo Menotti, The Saint of Bleecker Street, Broadway Theatre, New York, 26 March 1955.
*Phoebe Lou Adams to SP, 24 March, 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*In addition to SP, the Glascock Poetry contestants at Mount Holyoke College for 1955 were Lynne Lawner (Wellesley College), Jean Piser (Mount Holyoke College), David Rattray (Dartmouth College), Donald Lehmkuhl (Columbia University), and William Key Whitman (Wesleyan University).
*Marianne Moore, Collected Poems (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1953); SP’s signed and inscribed copy held by Smith College.
*American poet and art scholar Lynne Lawner (1935– ); B.A. 1957, Wellesley College.
*Mary Handy, ‘Judges Hear Glascock Poetry Contestants’, Christian Science Monitor, 18 April 1955, 2. The article includes two photographs of SP: one reading from a typescript with the first lines of her ‘April Aubade’ printed beneath, and the second with Marianne Moore.
*Chris Christiaen; B.A. 1955, Mount Holyoke College. Her ‘Poet on College Time’, Mademoiselle 41 (August 1955), 49, 52, 62, prints SP’s ‘Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea’ on pp. 52, 62.
*American poet and translator John Ciardi (1916–86).
*American writer and professor of literature Wallace Fowlie (1908–98).
*Joyce Horner (1903–80), professor of English, Mount Holyoke College, 1944–69. Horner ran the Glascock Poetry Contest with colleagues Joseph Bottkol and Constance Saintonge.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*Nadine Shepardson, associate professor of speech at Mount Holyoke College.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Probably a report on German heroic legends.
*According to SP’s calendar, her three recent poems were: ‘Sonnet to Satan’ on 17 April, ‘Apology to Pan’ on 18 April, and ‘Desert Song’ on 19 April 1955.
*No longer with the letter, the clipping was probably ‘Alpha-Phi Society Presents Awards, Names New Members’, The Sophian, 21 April 1955, 21.
*American author and editor Edward Weeks (1898–1989); editor of Atlantic Monthly, 1938–66.
*Edward Weeks to SP, 18 April 1955; held by Lilly Library.
*A birthday card designed by Oz.
*William Key Whitman, 1956, Wesleyan University.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*According to handwritten annotations made to the letter by an Atlantic Monthly employee, the five poems enclosed with ‘Lion Tamer’ and ‘Circus in Three Rings’ were: ‘Lament’, ‘Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea’, ‘Epitaph in Three Parts’, ‘Winter Words’ and ‘The Princess and the Goblins’.
*Date supplied from internal evidence.
*On Panda Prints birthday card designed by Rosalind Welcher.
*Date supplied from postmark.
*Enclosed with this letter is a cartoon of a parrot at a typewriter in a room with two women. Lawrence Hector Siggs, ‘No, he doesn’t talk’, Punch, 3 March 1955, 292. SP has an arrow pointing at the parrot with the handwritten annotation: ‘try teaching Peter the touch system!’ ASP also annotated this cartoon: ‘(Peter – our parakeet)’.