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Showing posts from December, 2014

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 "Intro

Sylvia Plath scholar Sally Bayley's The Private Life of the Diary

The author, Sally Bayley Teaching and Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford and a Lecturer in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Dr. Sally Bayley, contributor to Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual , co-editor of Representing Sylvia Plath , and author of several other articles on Sylvia Plath, is in the process of seeing her most recent book The Private Life of the Diary: from Pepys to Tweets (Unbound Books) through to completion. As you might expect from Sally and a book of diary writing, the book features Sylvia Plath who was a dedicated diary writer and journalist for nearly 20 of her 30 years. Here are some excerpts for you from the book; specially selected and published here with permission from the author and publisher: "...Plath, on the other hand, wants to be a good witness of life; she wishes to see and tell things as they are, and so her adolescent journals, kept from the age of fifteen, are filled with care

Signal to Noise: Reading Ted Hughes papers at the British Library

The following is a guest post by the poet and Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes scholar Christine Walde. Thank you, Christine! As a poet, librarian and researcher, I have been fortunate to visit Plath's archive at the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College and at the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Each site, owing to the scope and extent of their collections, has their own depth and complexity. And each time, whether I have expected it or not, each visit has bore new discoveries and revelations, both surprising and serendipitous. It's not uncommon that a special kind of magic happens in the archive. What makes Plath's archive unique — with its drafts and diaries and letters and essays and art and ephemera— is that it is, quite literally, a hive, a site of noise, made all the more audible by her silence in death. I admit to being seduced by this opposition of volumes. Reading poetry often involves the decoding of noise and silence, sifting through the information t

The Sylvia Plath Time Machine: Sotheby's 6 April 1982 & 2 December 2014

The 2 December 2014 auction of Sylvia Plath manuscripts , typescripts, lecture notes, artwork, a letter and photographs, among other items, is a massive treasure of her "early" works. The auction was held today in New York City as Lot 121 of the Fine Books & Manuscripts, including Americana Sale N09237. The lot came in at an estimate of $150,000-$250,000 and was one of the highest estimates to its point in the auction. While there were bids, starting at $90,000 and ending at $120,000, the lot unfortunately failed to sell, likely not meeting a reserve. Watch the video here . Who wants to take a trip on the Sylvia Plath Time Machine? A provenance note on the auction catalog indicates the material originally sold, also by Sotheby's, at auction on 6 April 1982. The auction took place around the time of some major Sylvia Plath publications: The Collected Poems came out on 25 November 1981; The Journals of Sylvia Plath (abridged) came out on 31 March 1982; and the an