Sylvia Plath collections: Letters to János Csokits, 1960-1998

At Emory University, the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Special Collections and Archives Division holds the Ted Hughes papers. In these papers are reference to Plath. In the János Csokits collection, Plath is a named person at some point in the correspondence. Below is the scope and content note from the finding aid.

Letters to János Csokits, 1960-1998

The collection consists primarily of 49 letters Ted Hughes wrote to János Csokits from 1960 to 1998. The correspondence ranges from personal to professional, with most letters combining the two. In this correspondence, Hughes sends news of his day-to-day home and family life, his translations of Pilinszky poems, comments on Csokits' translations, and ideas for their collaboration. During the course of the correspondence, Hughes also writes candidly about his frustration over Sylvia Plath's literary reputation and the material being published about her. He writes to Csokits about his own publications relating to Plath, including a candid letter about his motivation for the publication of Birthday Letters. Several of the letters include drafts of Pilinszky translations. Csokits provides a detailed, letter-by-letter annotation, which is included in the collection.

The collection also includes photocopies of most of Csokits' letters to Ted Hughes and to Olwyn Hughes from the same period. Although many of these letters are contained in Emory University's Ted Hughes collection, Csokits has provided copies of some letters not included in the collection, and he has appended translations to some of the copies in order to further elucidate their contents. Csokits has also appended a draft of Hughes' introduction to Desert of Love, and correspondence related to his personal reservations about publishing a Hungarian edition of the Pilinszky translations (which was never produced), to the photocopies of the relevant letters. All letters from Csokits to Hughes from 1964-1974, as well as several letters from 1975, are restricted until 2017.

Several translations of various Pilinszky poems by both Hughes and Csokits, not related to any specific correspondence, are also contained in the collection.

The collection is held in 3 boxes.

The full finding aid to this collection is online here.

The home page for the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Library is online here.

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