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Showing posts from February, 2017

Gail Crowther's The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath: An interview with the author

In August, after submitting the manuscript for her third book on Sylvia Plath,  Gail Crowther took some time to answer some questions about her recently published book  The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath (10 February 2017), her second on the poet. 1. Pretend, please, that this was Twitter... In 140 characters or less how would you describe your new book The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath ? #ICYMI stories about Plath and her readers #sylviaplath 2. Now, feel free to expand a little bit regarding its about-ness! The book is a really an exploration of what Plath means to some of her readers and why she plays such an important role in their lives. It's divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 begins with stories about the first time readers encountered Plath and then the book moves through the concept of doubling, Plath pilgrimages, Plath photographs, and Plath's objects. The book is framed by Freudian notions of identification, narcissism, mourning and melancholia, while al

Numbering Sylvia Plath's Poems

At the time of Sylvia Plath's death on 11 February 1963, a vast amount of her papers --the majority perhaps-- were in her mother's house at 26 Elmwood Road in Wellesley. These papers now form Plath mss II at the Lilly Library, Indiana University at Bloomington . Aurelia Plath would later gave nearly 250 items to Smith College in December 1983. Have you ever worked with Plath's early poems at the Lilly Library (or at Smith or Emory, where there can be found also some copies)? The poems are in Box 7 (poems A-M) and Box 8 (poems N-Z). Additionally, many of Plath's early poems have recently appeared at auction and if you have taken the time to view the images online, you may have noticed small penciled-in numbers in the top right corner. Here are two examples from recent auctions: From Sotheby's December 2014 auction: Numbered 3b From Bonhams' March 2016 auction: Numbered 21/2 Tucked away in the back of Plath mss II, Box 15, Publications Scrapbook, are

Update: These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath

Recently, Gail Crowther ( website ; twitter ) and I submitted our final edits to the publisher Fonthill for our forthcoming book of essays These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath . Currently, we are reviewing page proofs. The timetable for the rest of the pre-publication process is unknown. But progress is being made which is wonderful! We were excited to learn, also, that listings for the book are now Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com . And, it gives us great pleasure here to post here the cover for our book: The Amazon's seem to say that  TGA  will be published on 11 May 2017. However, the following press release indicates that the book will be published on 25 May 2017. Not sure at this point in time which is correct. All that does matter is that the book is coming out and that you are going to have your socks knocked off by the essays. Writing this book was such a joy. From the start to (nearly at the) finish, I cannot express how thrilling each essay was