Bonhams to Auction Major Sylvia Plath Items Formerly Belonging to Elizabeth Sigmund

Bonhams London will offer at auction some property formerly belonging to Elizabeth Sigmund, Sylvia Plath's friend and co-dedicatee of The Bell Jar.  The auction is part of the Fine Books and Manuscript auction (25355) in London (Knightsbridge) on 26 June 2019.

Links and images to the respective lots will be added when available. All text below gratefully provided from the auction catalogue by Luke Batterham, Senior Valuer at Bonhams.

LOT 238 • (24869413/1)

PLATH (SYLVIA)

THOMAS (DYLAN) The Collected Poems, SYLVIA PLATH'S COPY, ANNOTATED IN FIVE PLACES AND EXTENSIVELY UNDERLINED, with upwards of seventy sentences or passages underscored, marked or bracketed in the margins, in two places with Plath's distinctive "star" symbol in black ink, 13 poems in the Contents marked, photographic frontispiece, publisher's blue cloth, worn, spine soiled and split, 8vo, New York, A New Directions Book [by James Laughlin], [1953]

£3,000 - 5,000
€3,400 - 5,700

SYLVIA PLATH'S COPY OF DYLAN THOMAS'S COLLECTED POEMS. Writing to Ramona Maher, guest editor of Mademoiselle, on 16 March 1954, Plath stated categorically "Dylan Thomas is my favourite modern poet", and in her formative years he undoubtedly exerted an enormous influence on both her own poetry, and her sense of what a poet could be.

On May 20 1953 Plath went on "a literary pilgrimage" to hear Thomas give a poetry reading at Amherst, and early the following year reported to her friend Gordon Lamayer that she had been listening to recordings of Thomas ("the lyric Welshman I've been mourning for these past months" following his death the previous October) reading his own poems, "making me shiver and sometimes even to cry to hear ['Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night']" (The Letters of Sylvia Plath... 1940-1956, edited by Peter K. Steinberg & Karen V. Kukil, Faber, 2017); this a poem Plath has marked with a star symbol in this copy of the Collected Poems.

Two years later, in April 1956, it was Dylan Thomas that Plath used as a measure against which to judge the qualities of Ted Hughes when she first met him. In a letter to her mother Aurelia (19 April 1956, cf. Letters, p.1164/5) she wrote "His [Hughes'] voice is richer and rarer than Dylan Thomas, booming through walls and doors... He reads his own poems which are better than Thomas and Hopkins...".

Her copy of Thomas's Poems is extensively underlined throughout, with passages marked up in the margins. Beside 'The Hunchback in the Park' she notes "hunchback's vision-", "-That hunchback makes out of his vision", and "fantasy games of boys-"; alongside the text of 'Twenty-Four Years' she notes "Shroud of flesh - journey to the grave -", and, intriguingly, beneath the final stanza of 'Fern Hill', she states "Freedom with necessity".

Provenance: Sylvia Plath, ex-libris on front free endpaper, and annotations in her hand; Elizabeth Sigmund (1928-2017), co-author of Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning (2014), and under her former married name of Elizabeth Compton the co-dedicatee of The Bell Jar. Beneath Plath's bookplate Elizabeth has written in the quotation ("Even amidst fierce flames...") used for Plath's headstone; by descent to the present owner.

LOT 239 (24869413/3)

PLATH (SYLVIA)

Typed carbon copy of the essay-memoir "Landscape of Childhood" [published as "Ocean 1212-W"], on 8 sheets (recto only), each sheet with title "Landscape of Childhood", the first sheet headed "Sylvia Plath/23 Fitzroy Road/London N.W.1", the other sheets "Sylvia Plath" before the page number (i.e. 2 to 8), paperclip upper left hand corner, a few light single spots, folio (280 x 215mm.), [circa January 1963]

£1,500 - 2,000
€1,700 - 2,300

"My childhood landscape was not land but the end of the land" - Plath's essay-memoir, "Landscape of Childhood", was almost definitely the last prose piece she wrote. She sent the completed text, from her flat at 23 Fitzroy Road, to Leonie Cohn at the B.B.C. on 28 January 1963, just two weeks prior to her death.

In the essay Plath "reminisces about her childhood in the United States. The title of the piece refers to her grandmother's phone number at her home in the coast of Massachusetts, where Plath spent time when she was a young girl. The birth of her brother when she was aged two and a half is described as a particularly crucial moment in her childhood" (British Library website).

The essay was subsequently published, with the title changed to "Ocean 1212-W" in the B.B.C. periodical The Listener (August 1963), and the anthology Writers on Themselves (1964), on both occasions with omissions and amendments from the typescript. For a full analysis of these, and a detailed description of the genesis and progress of the essay, from its commissioning by the B.B.C. producer Leonie Cohn (who suggested the published title), to a final letter sent by her to Plath on 8 February suggesting a few alterations, see Gail Crowther and Peter K. Steinberg, These Ghostly Archives. The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath, 2017. It is thought that the typescript sent to the B.B.C. is lost, and the current carbon copy, retained by Plath, is therefore the only extant version of the original poem.

Provenance: Elizabeth Sigmund (1928-2017), co-author of Sylvia Plath in Devon (2014), and under her previous married name of Elizabeth Compton the co-dedicatee of The Bell Jar; by descent to the present owner.

LOT 240 • (24869413/2)

[PLATH (SYLVIA)]

The Bell Jar. By Victoria Lucas, FIRST EDITION, THE DEDICATEE'S COPY, ownership inscription "E.J. Compton. 1963. N. Tawton" in black ink on front paste-down, occasional light spotting, publisher's cloth, dust-jacket (unclipped, worn with some loss to extremities and spine and corners) [Tabor A4a.1], 8vo, Heinemann, [1963]; together with an autograph letter signed by Ted Hughes ("Ted") to "David & Elizabeth [Compton]", giving them permission to stay at Court Green, written from "23 Fitzroy Road, N.W.1", one page, in original envelope stamped 31 March 1963 (2)

£2,000 - 3,000
€2,300 - 3,400

THE DEDICATEE ELIZABETH COMPTON'S COPY OF THE BELL JAR, given to her after Plath's death by Ted Hughes.

'Elizabeth Compton and Sylvia Plath met in Devon in 1962 almost by chance after Plath and Ted Hughes's 1961 BBC radio interview "Two of a Kind: Poets in Partnership". As a result of that meeting, the two young women became immediate friends. Friends, indeed, with a bond so strong that within months Plath was to dedicate her novel, The Bell Jar, to Elizabeth and her then husband David Compton" (Peter K. Steinberg, Sylviaplathinfo website, 6 January 2018).

Elizabeth recalled that Plath had written to her "and said 'if you want I'll dedicate The Bell Jar to you, but it will be in a funny place because my decision has come rather late – opposite chapter one. Is that OK?' Of course, I said yes. But I didn't read it until she was dead." (The Guardian, interview, 18 January 2013). After Plath's suicide at 23 Fitzroy Road, her London flat, Elizabeth visited Ted Hughes there, at which time he "gave her a copy of the Bell Jar, just published and dedicated to her, saying 'It doesn't fall to many men to murder a genius..."' (Jonathan Bate, Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life, 2015). Elizabeth's recollections of this period subsequently led to controversy, as did the decision to excise Plath's dedication to the Comptons when Faber republished The Bell Jar under Plath's own name in 1966, but Hughes' letter, included in this lot, written from Fitzroy Road, posted on 31 March 1963 and signed "Love Ted", indicates that at this time relations were still very friendly. Hughes writes that "It was nice to see you up here...", adding "... Certainly you can stay at Court Green if you want", discussing the practicality of getting the key and checking the plumbing, before remarking "I am putting the place up for sale. If you're there to show enquirers around, all the better...".

Provenance: Elizabeth Sigmund, formerly Elizabeth Compton, co-dedicatee of The Bell Jar, ownership inscription on front paste-down, given to her by Ted Hughes; by descent to the present owner.

All links accessed: 18 May 2019.

Sylvia Plath in Granta (and Spare Rib)

One of the best things one can do is read the periodicals in which Sylvia Plath's work was published. Many are held in libraries and archives, some have even been digitized. Some exist, also, on microfilm or microfiche which is not the best product but will be useful and functional for a long time to come.

Several people sent me "tip" money last year for which I am grateful. I promised to use that for the benefit of my Plathing and perhaps it trickles down to you, too? With some of that money I recently acquired the 20 October 1956 issue of Granta magazine in which was printed Plath's short story "The Day Mr Prescott Died".

Looking at the table of contents two names ring bells with me. One is Michael Frayn, with whom Plath was friendly. Frayn is both mentioned in Plath's letters and was sent at least one letter, too, in March of 1957. The other name is Bamber Gascoigne, who is now a British television presenter and author, best known for being the original quiz master on "University Challenge". Did Plath know him? I am not too sure, but she recycled the name "Bamber" as one of the characters in her story "Stone Boy With Dolphin", which fictionalized the night of 25 February 1956. Plath also knew the editor Ben Nash and his name should be familiar to you, too.

Looking at a publication that Plath would have seen is fun; particularly seeing her contribution but also the advertisements as they bring to life that era.

"The Day Mr. Prescott Died" was written in January 1955 and is loosely based on experiences from June 1954 when Ruth Freeman's father died, suddenly, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Plath write about it in some letters to Gordon Lameyer, printed in The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1. The story was reprinted in a magazine called Spare Rib in June 1973.

The story was hardly "unknown" as the cover led readers to believe. But, that was the 1970s and a lot was unknown about Sylvia Plath.

The magazine was digitized in 2015 and you can read some of the issue with Plath's story via the British Library's Journal Archives. Warning, much of the content is redacted.

All links accessed 8 May 2019.

Guest Post: Aurelia Plath’s Shorthand, Now in English

The following post was submitted by Catherine Rankovic. Thank you Catherine for your work in deciphering, or, rather, transcribing Aurelia Schober Plath's Gregg shorthand into English, and for making it available to us. ~pks

Aurelia Plath hand-wrote hundreds of notes and comments on the nearly 700 letters she received from Sylvia, and on their envelopes and Sylvia-related correspondence archived at the Lilly Library. Most annotations are in plain English but some are in Gregg shorthand, a professional note-taking system Aurelia learned in business college and taught. I first saw (and was awed by) the original letters in 2012, began cataloging and transcribing Aurelia’s shorthand in 2013, and presented preliminary findings at the Sylvia Plath Conference in Belfast in 2017. The 159 shorthand annotations I found in the Plath mss. II correspondence and in Plath's personal library are now in a downloadable Excel file along with a short PDF “key” about the table.

Aurelia wrote in shorthand when pressed for time or space (that’s what it’s for), but as the transcripts show, also in retrospect and to keep private some letters and remarks. Sylvia never learned Gregg shorthand, instead teaching herself Speedwriting, a shorthand substitute, for temporary office jobs Sylvia held in 1959 and 1961. Gregg shorthand appears on other Lilly materials and also in the Plath archive at Smith College. Articles based on this project’s findings are forthcoming. I’m smiling. I’ve learned a lot and there’s more to learn.

Gregg, a language of symbols developed for secretarial work, cannot be spoken, so shorthand is “transcribed” rather than translated. Transcriptions are verbatim, not approximations. A single shorthand symbol is called a “character.” The Estate of Aurelia S. Plath granted me permission to release these transcriptions for scholarly purposes. I hold the copyright to the English transcriptions. Dozens of people kindly helped me and I thank them.

All links accessed 19 April 2019.

Did you know...: Sylvia Plath on the Underground

On 28 January 1963 Sylvia Plath was hard at work. On that day she completed her "Landscape on Childhood" (later titled "Ocean 1212-W"). She may have also recently completed "Snow Blitz" and was hard at work on poems. She revised the ending of "Sheep in Fog" first composed about eight weeks earlier, and then wrote "The Munich Mannequins", "Totem", and "Child".

Did you know that "Child" was once featured at a "Poems on the Underground" in London? The program started in 1986.

In addition to being readable on the Tube, once upon a time, posters were sold for these, too. 

Sylvia Plath Archives at Lilly Library (& Smith)

Recently the Lilly Library has been awarded a $10.9 million grant and part of these funds, given by the Lilly Endowment, will go towards renovating the library. The Library has created a special web page that will provide news and updates on the renovation.

This will have an affect on researchers going to look at the Sylvia Plath collection. And, because they do actually hold more stuff than Plath materials, it will also affect those collections, too.

Chances are if you have plans to visit the library this spring and summer you will be fine and not experience and delays or disruptions. But visitors later in the year and toward the end will definitely want to double-check their plans and thus plan accordingly.

Smith College is also in the midst of a several-year renovation project affecting their Sylvia Plath papers, too. (I presume they have non-Plath holdings, too, but let's be honest, they hardly matter.) Normally housed in the Neilson Library, their special collections are temporarily in the Young Library. Writing this now I realized that I have not been to Smith College since January 2017, before the Neilson closed, and now that I have moved away, I may never go back. Weird.

All links accessed 11 April 2019.

Sylvia Plath's Postcards

David Trinidad's phenomenal essay "On the Road with Sylvia and Ted: Plath and Hughes's 1959 Trip Across America" was one of the best pieces I had to pleasure to read and work on when I was co-editor of Plath Profiles. And it in part led me to start thinking about Sylvia Plath picture postcards.

I got to see, as part of the Letters of Sylvia Plath project, as many postcards as was possible. And so now that her texts are available, I thought I might write a post that might become a series which looks at the picture side of the postcards Plath sent.

The idea came to me in June 2012, the year after publishing David's essay, when I did a little research into the postcard Plath sent to J. Mallory Wober circa 17 November 1955 of Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy. The letter is printed in Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1, pp 1011-12.

The original painting is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Plath visited the MoMA several times on various visits to New York City and during the autumn and winter of 1954-1955 made trips to the city with Richard Sassoon. The painting was exhibited from 19 October 1954 to 23 January 1955 as part of the "XXVth Anniversary Exhibitions: Paintings". According to her pocket calendar, Plath visited the Museum of Modern Art on 24 January 1955, the day after the exhibit closed! It could be that she purchased the postcard at that time. But she also visited in June 1953 and April 1954, and it is possible the painting was on general view.

All links accessed 2 June 2012 and 10 January 2019.

New Letter from Sylvia Plath Found

The following letter was sent from Sylvia Plath to me via David Trinidad's Ouija board early this morning.

It will be included in the paperback edition of The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 3: 1963-2019.



Sylvia Plath
7 Bright Stupid Confetti Lane
My Zen Heaven

Peter K. Steinberg
Earth

1 April 2019

RE: Cease and desist from everything

Dear Peter K. Steinberg:

This CEASE AND DESIST ORDER is to inform you that your persistent actions including but not limited to transcribing and annotating my letters; tweeting, blogging, websiting and otherwise attempting to represent me on the Internet (not for nothing, the wifi is awesome up here) have become unbearable. You are ORDERED TO STOP such activities immediately as they are being done in violation of the law.

I have the right to remain free from these activities as they constitute [harassment/stalking/etc.], and I will pursue any legal and spirituous remedies available to me against you if these activities continue. These remedies include but are not limited to: contacting law enforcement to obtain criminal sanctions against you, and suing you civilly for damages I have incurred as a result of your actions.

Again, you must IMMEDIATELY STOP these activities and send me written confirmation that you will stop such activities. You risk incurring some very severe legal and Godly consequences if you fail to comply with this demand.

This letter acts as your final warning to discontinue this unwanted conduct before I pursue legal actions against you. At this time, I am not contacting the authorities or filing civil suit against you, as I hope we can resolve this matter without authoritative involvement. I am not under any circumstances, however, waiving any legal rights I have presently, or future legal remedies against you by sending you this letter. I might smite you. This order acts as ONE FINAL CHANCE for you to cease your illegal activities before I exercise my rights.

To ensure compliance with this letter, and to halt any legal action I may take against you, I require you to fill in and sign the attached form and mail it back to me within 10 days of your receipt of this letter. Failure to do so will act as evidence of your infringement upon my legal rights, and I will immediately seek legal avenues to remedy the situation.

Sincerely yours,

Sylvia Plath




CEASE AND DESIST COMPLIANCE AGREEMENT

I, Peter K. Steinberg, do hereby agree to stop these unwanted activities which are in violation of Sylvia Plath's rights. I understand that this is my final chance to cease these activities. I understand that Sylvia Plath potentially has the right to pursue legal and smiting action against me relating to my engagement in these activities, but she will not pursue those rights in contemplation of my compliance with this written demand. I further understand that Sylvia Plath has not waived her rights and may pursue legal remedies against me if I fail to abide by this agreement. I understand that this agreement is not specifically limited to the activities named herein. I will not engage in any activity now or in the future done for the purpose of stalking/harassing Sylvia Plath. I furthermore agree not to engage in any activity, regardless of its official title, that is done in violation of Sylvia Plath’s legal rights. If I fail to cease performing these activities, Sylvia Plath may pursue legal action against me in accordance her legal rights. This agreement acts as a contract between Peter K. Steinberg and Sylvia Plath. Forbearing enforcement of legally enforceable remedies is sufficient consideration to support this agreement. This agreement represents the entire agreement between the parties. Any statements made orally, written, or otherwise which are not contained herein shall have no impact on either parties’ rights or obligations elaborated in this agreement.

Date: 1 April 2019

Peter K. Steinberg

Sylvia Plath Letters Event: Stockton University

Emily Van Duyne (Twitter)—whose work on Sylvia Plath you should know (LitHub, Electric Lit, The Smart Set, LitHub again, and LitHub again as well as a forthcoming review of The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2 in the Harvard Review and a monograph-in-progress on Plath entitled Loving Sylvia Plath)—invited me to give a talk on Sylvia Plath and the Letters at her university, Stockton University, in Galloway, New Jersey and it was an offer I could not refuse.

So, this is a blog post to inform and invite anyone who is in the area to attend the talk which is open to the public.

Time: 6 pm
Date: 1 April 2019
Place: Campus Center Theater

On that Monday before the talk I will be sitting on on two of Emily's classes to talk Plath. She is teaching the Beuscher letters and The Silent Woman as part of a comparative study. That afternoon, as well, I will sit in on a psychology class taught by Kaite Yang. On Tuesday, I look forward to sitting in on her colleague Thomas Kinsella's class.

Funding for this opportunity was provided by a 2020 Learning Grant, as well as the American Studies and Literature programs at Stockton.

All links accessed 28 February 2019.

Sylvia Plath's Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom Event

Last evening was the a wonderful WSJPlus/HarperCollins event on Sylvia Plath's recently published short story Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom at the showroom of MM.LaFleur on 42nd Street at Bryant Park. Manhattan is always a whirlwind experience--a hullabaloo, as Plath said.

It was a terrifically Plathian day all around, receiving interesting emails from people and also getting the proofs of the paperback editions of both volumes of The Letters of Sylvia Plath. When it rains, it Plaths.

My thanks to Carla Zanoni for asking me to participate and for being a wonderful host and conversationalist. The room was full of people and I enjoyed the rapport, the questions and chatting, and in particular just seeing and reading the genuine interest in peoples faces.

Here is a clip of Carla reading from the story.

Feeling incredibly fortunate to discuss the work of #SylviaPlath with Peter K. Steinberg, aka @sylviaplathinfo, and @wsjplus members. Was full on in my element. ✍️ Thanks to @mmlafleur for being an amazing host. pic.twitter.com/3anD2OyPRF

— 𝕮𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖆 𝖅𝖆𝖓𝖔𝖓𝖎 (@carlazanoni) March 13, 2019

My thanks, too, to Carl Rollyson for coming. It was awesome to chat with a familiar face before the gig started and was wonderfully calming.

Look for the next blog post on Monday...another event!

Sylvia Plath Poems Published Today by Faber

Faber and Faber has reissued Sylvia Plath Poems Chosen by Carol Ann Duffy today.

The book is 160 pages, the ISBN is 978-0-571-34851-0 and it retails for £9.99.

Copies are available, as you might imagine, from the publisher as well as from sites like Amazon.co.uk.

All links accessed 6 March 2018.