The wrap up for last week was pretty exciting, culminating of course with the Sylvia Plath 75th Anniversary Symposium at Smith College on Friday and Saturday. Yes, Julia Stiles and Tristine Skylar were present, in part to enjoy the very good papers, and in part to do research for their forthcoming film adaptation of Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar . Plath's friends Marcia Brown Stern, Elinor Friedman Klein, and Phil McCurdy were present, as well as author's of critical and biographical works of Plath including Lynda K. Bundtzen, Susan van Dyne, Langdon Hammer, Judith Kroll, Karen Kukil, Richard Larschan, myself, and other. A fuller review of the events will be online later this week. The Bell Jar makes the Telegraph's list of the top 50 Cult Books! Thank you VC. Today, 27 April, also marks the first anniversary of this blog. Happy Anniversary. Thank you to all the lurkers. Thank you to those who have left comments. And thank you to those who have, in either emai...

Did you know what Sylvia Plath and Flann O'Brien ( née Brian O'Nolan, aka Myles na gCopaleen) had something in common? Flann O'Brien, author of At Swim-Two-Birds , The Dalkey Archive , The Third Policeman , and so much more, had for his literary agent A. M. Heath & Co., located at 10 Dover Street, London. Sylvia Plath also used A. M. Heath starting circa the fall of 1960 to help her sell short stories to women's magazines. A. M. Heath were successful in finding publishers for O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds and for Plath's short story "The Perfect Place" ( My Weekly , 28 October 1961). Plath & O'Brien had different agents at A. M. Heath. But wait, there's more!! In 1962, Plath and Hughes traveled through Dublin on their way to Cleggan to see Richard Murphy. Murphy was an acquaintance of O'Brien's, and O'Brien was friendly with Murphy's first wife, Patricia Avis. On their way to Cleggan, Plath and Hughes staye...

It was a difficult week for Wim Van Mierlo's Sylvia Plath / Ted Hughes Chronology . Amazon.com flip-flopped all week between expecting the book to be in stock within a month and 'not in stock'. The book disappeared from the Palgrave website, too. Mysterious... Carol Bere's review of Anita Helle's The Unraveling Archive: Essays on Sylvia Plath is online at the website of Cercles . Sylvia Plath 75 Year Symposium participant Georgiana Banita recently published the following article: “‘The Same, Identical Woman’: Sylvia Plath in the Media.” M/MLA Journal , Special Issue High & Low Culture. Ed. Kevin J.H. Dettmar. 40.2 (Fall 2007): 38-60. T-minus one week until they Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith College.

The New York Public Library holds the Yaddo Records, 1870-1980. The finding aid to the collection is online here . Materials relating to Plath and Hughes may be found in the following series: Series V: Yaddo Corporation Records, 1926-1980 A. Guest Files 2. 1940-1976 Box 276, Folder 2 I have a request out to the NYPL for more information as to the contents of Box 276, Folder 2. Will report back when I hear something!

Here are some interesting links from the last week or so. Additionally, some information on the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith College, on 25 and 26 April. Molly Durham at the Emory Wheel reviews the current exhibit at Emory University, "Democratic Vistas: Exploring the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library." Part of the collection includes Anne Sexton's copy of Sylvia Plath's Ariel . The Seattle Post Intelligencer also reports . The New York Times also reviews the exhibit, which includes a slide show. There are two images of Ariel included. The Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith College is in two short weeks. Judith Kroll, author of Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath is a recent addition to the speakers list. Aubrey Menard, the co-ordinator and also a presenter, informs that Kroll will discuss "her relationship with Aurelia Plath and read some letters that Aurelia wrote to her." The website for the Symposium can be ...

Greetings. I'd like to post here that a new web page is present on my website for Sylvia Plath, A celebration, this is . The new web page lists, chronologically, Plath's publications in periodicals, from her first poem in the Boston Herald in 1940 to excerpts from her Unabridged Journals in The Guardian in 2000 and more recently in 2003, excerpts of letters between Plath and Dorothea Krook in the now defunct London Magazine. The web page is online here and is filed under, more generally, the bibliographies section of the site.

As Julia Stiles is producing currently a new film version of The Bell Jar , I thought immediately of the libel lawsuit that sprung as a result of the first cinematic adaption. Dr. Jane Anderson, a Boston area psychiatrist, sued for defamation of character over the films portrayal of Joan Gilling as a lesbian. Just be careful, Julia... The current film status is pre-production. Below are two lists of articles. The first regards the lawsuit and the second is a selection of reviews of the first adaptation of The Bell Jar . Links to articles in appearing in The New York Times are provided for your reading enjoyment. There are some instances where I was unable to obtain complete citation information. I apologise for this... Lawsuit: Blau, Eleanor. "Film's suicide scenes were 'ethical outrage'." The New York Times . January 31, 1987: 21. Blau, Eleanor. "'Bell Jar' case ends in accord." The New York Times . January 30, 1987: C-13. Blau, Eleanor. ...

Some might say that too much Sylvia Plath is unhealthy. Do you spend too much time searching the Internet, reading and re-reading articles, books, and blogs, examining book covers, compiling bibliographies, etc. of things relating to or about Sylvia Plath? Wait, I think I'm describing myself here...anyway.... To help combat this apparent addiction, I've volunteered to test out a revolutionary diet: the Reduced Addiction Plath Intake Diet (RAPID). My wife hired scientists from Wookey Hole (England), Balzers (Liechtenstein), and Sneem (Ireland) to develop RAPID in an attempt to suppress my alleged over-indulgence of all things Sylvia Plath. (I don't have a problem, do I?) Will it work? Probably not, though my wife remains hopeful! The first test will be to see if I can still function in, what for me is, a normal fashion on a daily basis if I "consume" smaller Plathian portions. Following the craze that is currently sweeping an ever more dietary conscious pop...