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Sylvia Plath 2014: Year in Review

After the chaos of 2013 in the world Sylvia Plath, I think I was not too surprised that 2014 was a far quieter year. In fact, I think a lot of us needed that from what was an over-saturation of stuff.


Unlike last year, there were very few major newspaper articles about Plath, as well as fewer scholarly essays published during the course of this year. At the present time just one new book published about Plath. Squeaking in under the wire, Gail Crowther's and Elizabeth Sigmund's biography & memoir of dual authorship Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning (Fonthill Media) was published in December. The book features some of Elizabeth's memories of her friend, and an excellent, full length biographical treatment by Gail of Plath's time in Devon from September 1961 to early December 1962. It is the best assessment of that amazing year and period in Plath's life I have ever read, and was honored to be asked by both Gail and Elizabeth to write the "Introduction" to the volume. I hope you enjoy the entire book. Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning can be purchased via Amazon.co.uk AYTAmazon.com AYT, and other booksellers, and it available both in print and in various electronic formats.

2013 biographies by Carl Rollyson, Andrew Wilson, and Elizabeth Winder were all released in paperback format. Sally Bayley (contributor to Eye Rhymes and co-editor of Representing Sylvia Plath) is working on seeing published her new book The Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets (Unbound Books). Plath necessarily features in this work.


There was only one book by Plath issued this year, and that was late in the year. In November, Faber released The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit and Other Stories. This is a compilation of all of Plath's children's stories which numbers to just three: "The Bed Book", "The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit" and "Mrs. Cherry's Kitchen" and features illustrations by David Roberts. The book was released simultaneously in England and America, both in paperback and in Kindle editions. It is the first time that "Mrs. Cherry's Kitchen" has been published in the US! For purchasing, visit Faber's website, Amazon.co.uk (UK paperback - UK Kindle), or Amazon.com (US paperback - US Kindle).

As mentioned above, highlights and newsworthy events for Plath this year were fewer than last year, but 2014 closes out with a bang. In November we learned of a major Sylvia Plath archive to be sold at Sotheby's on 2 December. In obsessing over this auction, and its original appearance on the block in 1982, I learned much including the existence of four new Plath letters, as well as additional early poems and stories that were largely unknown.

It was also a good year for tours. In February, I flew to London to give a Plath tour to three Americans. that included London, Devon, and Heptonstall. It was timed to be at Plath's grave on 11 February. On that trip, Gail Crowther and I were shown Plath and Hughes' flat at 3 Chalcot Square. In September, I got to tour Yaddo as they opened their doors to the public for a weekend; and in November, I gave a tour of Winthrop, Anne Sexton's house in Newton, and McLean Hospital to Australian scholar Sarah-Jane Burton.

In looking back through each month, certain posts for me stand about among others. The following posts either took a lot of time to research and gave me a sense of accomplishment, or simply the topic seemed more interesting or garnered more attention:

In January, my wife and I made Sylvia Plath's Heavenly Sponge Cake. It was some good.

February 2014: Concluded a 4 month project to highlight Sylvia Plath collections. The three discussed in February were Martin Booth papers, William Heinemann Ltd. archives, and holdings at the University of Tulsa.

March 2014: The unanimous most popular post this year was "Sylvia Plath and the SS United States". Another neat one with lots of good information was Sylvia Plath's Passport, Part 2. This was following in April with a Part 3 and a fun post on "Sylvia Plath: Three Women and The Journals.

In May and June and July, several posts highlighted newly found articles authored by (or very likely authored by) Sylvia Plath. See posts on 20 May; 8 June; and 7 July. Poet and Plath scholar David Trinidad was the featured blogger for the month of June for the Poetry Foundation. All of his posts are wonderful, but concentrated on Plath: "More is More: Sylvia Plath's Letters" and "Collecting Sylvia Plath".

If you missed "Sylvia Plath & the Mystery of the Ad in the Paper" or "The Search for Sylvia Plath continues..." in August, shame on you.

This blog would not be as successful without the guests posts! Deep, sincere thanks to Christine Walde for her fascinating "Signal to Noise: Reading Ted Hughes papers at the British Library" and to Gail Crowther for her "Sylvia Plath, Bell Jars and Bowen" post from September. In October, November, and December there were some fun posts, too, so be sure to check each month out.

For the sake of consistency, I will report on the popular pages on my website for Sylvia Plath, A celebration, this is and give a summary of total hits. I find the metrics behind the website and blog really interest because it helps me to look at how people are finding the site, and also helps me to think about the areas that might need improving (or even removing). Visitors most likely used the keywords "Sylvia Plath", "Sylvia Plath Biography" or "The Bell Jar". The top six pages of the website for the year beginning 1 December 2013 and ending 30 November 2014 are:

1) Biography
2) Poetry Works
3) The Bell Jar
4) Prose Works
5) Thumbs books (SP's prose works
6) Johnny Panic synopses

One improvement to the website this year, and it is still a work in progress, is that on the Works Index page, where known I have added a date, or dates, of composition. As with everything on either the website or this blog, I hope it is useful, and if you notice something missing or wrong, please let me know. And, between the website and the blog, there were a total of at least 90,541 hits. Thank you!

My own blog activity this year was way down from previous years. Why? Mostly because I spent a massive portion of the year transcribing, annotating, and proofing all of the letters written by Plath not held by Smith College (in the neighborhood of 1200), conducting research on these letters for the notes, building the index for these letters, and other duties. This took an enormous amount of time and energy, but I hope that what posts I did do on this blog, and what additions I did make to the website, were useful, interesting, informative, and that they will contribute in some fashion to a better understanding of Plath's life and her creative works. It is a privilege to get to work with these documents so closely and hope when the book is published (when, I'm not sure, so don't ask!) it will be a significant contribution to Plath studies.

Looking ahead to 2015! It will be the 50th anniversary (not another one!) of
Ariel in March. Intentional or not, Faber is releasing a beautifully repackaged edition of Plath's most famous volume of poetry in April as compiled and published after Plath's death by Ted Hughes. (Read their 29 September 2014 announcement on this here.)

I learned so incredibly much about Sylvia Plath this year. Biographically and otherwise. In large part my motivation to research and to try to learn more is because of you, the fine readers of this blog. Thank you all for reading, emailing, and sending me links via Twitter and other means. Thank you also to those who comment and for occasionally discussing some of ideas, issues, and topics brought up in posts. Happy Holidays!

All links accessed 24 October; 21 November; and 4, 8 & 11 December 2014.

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