Sylvia Plath collections: Gordon Ames Lameyer Papers, Lilly Library, Indiana University

The Lilly Library at the Indiana University, Bloomington, holds the Gordon Ames Lameyer Papers, 1953-1956. They also hold a massive Plath archive, of which the finding aid is online here.

Lameyer and Plath dated beginning around 1953, but he was not the only man Plath saw during their time together. Lameyer was eclipsed by fellows like Myron "Mike" Lotz and Richard Sassoon.

There are 98 total items in this collection. On two research trips to Indiana in 2002 and 2003, I had the pleasure of looking through this collection. The photographs and slides are extremely well preserved; the color especially so. Used to seeing Plath reproduced only in black and white, seeing color photographs of her adds a very deep dimension to her likeness.

Here is an abstract of the collection, "Consists mainly of cards and letters from poet Sylvia Plath to Gordon Ames Lameyer (1930-1991). Two poems by Plath are included in the letters: "Dirge in Three Parts" on page 4 of the Feb. 6, 1954 letter and "Sonnet for a Greeneyed Sailor" in the Apr. 1955 letter. Also present is an unpublished manuscript by Lameyer titled Dear Sylvia. A group of twenty-one color slides and twenty, mostly color, photographs, chiefly of Plath, complete the collection."

Lameyer attemtped to have his memoir of Plath, Dear Sylvia, published in either the late 1960s or 1970s. Correspondence is on file in the Mortimer Rare Book Room that essentially thrashes his writing. If my memory serves, Fran McCullough, Olwyn Hughes and Aurelia Schober Plath discussed it.

The Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith also has "Letters from Sylvia", a piece written by Lameyer that includes correspondence from Plath, that appeared in the Smith Alumnae Quarterly, Vol. 67, no. 2 (Feb. 1976).

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de

Sylvia Plath and McLean Hospital

In August when I was in the final preparations for the tour of Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar sites, I found that I had long been mistaken about a couple of things. This is my coming clean. It was my intention in this blog post to discuss just McLean, but I found myself deeply immersed in other aspects of Plath's recovery. The other thing I was mistaken about will be discussed in a separate blog post. I suppose I need to state from the outset that I am drawing conclusions from Plath's actual experiences from what she wrote in The Bell Jar and vice versa, taking information from the novel that is presently unconfirmed or murky and applying it to Plath's biography. There is enough in The Bell Jar , I think, based on real life to make these decisions. At the same time, I like to think that I know enough to distinguish where things are authentic and where details were clearly made up, slightly fudged, or out of chronological order. McLean Hospital was Plath's third and last

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