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 Also present is an unpublished manuscript by Lameyer titled Dear Sylvia.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).

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