Sylvia Plath collections: Letters to Assia Wevill, 1955-1970

Emory University made news in 1998 when it purchased the papers of Ted Hughes. Since that time, only one accretion made the headlines. On 8 January 2007, Emory announced the acquisition of letters from Ted Hughes to Assia Wevill in this press release.

Many archives acquire important letters and those letters go straight to the back of the queue. However, the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Library processed this collection quickly. Lucky for us! One of the letters from Ted to Assia's sister Cecilia Chaikin, deals with the return of some stolen Plath manuscripts. I wonder if these are listed and which archive they reside in now?

Letters to Assia Wevill, 1955-1970

The collection contains letters, manuscripts, poems, drawings, photographs, and miscellaneous documents relating to Ted Hughes and Assia Wevill. Included are 61 letters from Hughes to Wevill; included with the letters are drafts for a series of poems on playing cards and a "Draft Constitution," which appears to be an agreement between Ted and Assia concerning her responsibilities towards his children, her household duties, and general behavior. The collection also includes six letters from Assia Wevill to Ted Hughes; one early (1955) letter from Wevill to her sister, Cecilia Chaikin; and three letters from Ted Hughes to Chaikin written after Assia's death. The first two deal with his response to Assia's suicide, while the third responds to Celia's offer to return a number of Plath's manuscripts, which had been sent to her by Assia. Finally, the correspondence contains two letters from David Wevill to Assia, and one letter from Assia to him.

The remainder of the collection consists of a number of manuscript and typescript drafts of Hughes's poems; eight miscellaneous pieces of notes and letters by Assia, addressed obliquely to Hughes; and a number of photographs of Assia Wevill, both alone and with Hughes, Shura, Frieda, and Nicholas. One of the typescripts, which bears the title "For Aya," represents a preliminary version, in four parts, of the longer sequence of poems published as "The New World", while another poem, "Little Blood," contains an extra stanza omitted in publication. Other typescripts include variant titles, and one bears additional manuscript material on its reverse side. Two of the poems, "Crow Outlawed" and "Carrion Tiresias Examines the Sacrifice," appear to be unpublished.

The collection is held in one box. The full finding aid to this collection is online here.

If anyone out there has worked with these letters, we'd all be curious to know your impressions.
New information about Assia Wevill, Ted Hughes, and Plath, please see Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren's remarkable biography, A lover of unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's rival and Ted Hughes' doomed love, available at fine book stores worldwide, online, and through libraries.

Photograph of Assia Wevill above from Emory's web site.

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