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Sylvia Plath collections: Letters to Lucas Myers, 1955-1988

The Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books library at Emory also hold letters from Ted Hughes to E. Lucas Myers, his Cambridge friend. Myers is the author of Crow Steered Bergs Appeared: A Memoir of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, 2001.

When Plath read the Saint Botolph's Review in February 1956, she found Myers' poems equally as forceful and impressive as Hughes'. But, we know who won that race.

Letters to Lucas Myers, 1955-1988

The collection consists primarily of correspondence from Ted Hughes to Lucas Myers from 1955-1988. Hughes letters begin the year after he came down from Cambridge and entreats Myers to help him arrange a meeting with Sylvia Plath. Through the years the letters reflect Hughes' life, career, and development as a writer shared with someone whose opinion he sought and whose writing he respected. Hughes discusses his marriage to Sylvia Plath, their homes, the birth and progress of their children, his views on fatherhood, comments on Plath's work and lengthy reflections on his own work. Also present is one letter to Myers from Sylvia Plath dated March 7, [1957] regarding Hughes' success as a teacher and her frustration with her studies; four Christmas cards signed by both Hughes and Plath; and three letters by Assia Wevil in 1965 concerning her daughter, meetings with Tate and Ezra Pound, and other literary news. The collection also contains a photograph of Ted Hughes and Lucas Myers (n.d.) and a copy of "Ah Youth: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath at Cambridge and After," by Lucas Myers, offprint from Grand Street, [Summer 1989].

The collection takes up 2 boxes.

Plath items are in Box 1, Folders 3 and 4.

The full finding aid to this collection is online here.

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