Sylvia Plath collections: Oriel College, Oxford

The library at Oriel College, University of Oxford, holds a typescript of Sylvia Plath's poem "Mayflower." A note in the catalog entry indicates that "Mayflower" was the runner-up for the Lee-Hamilton prize for a Petrarchan sonnet written by an undergraduate of either Oxford or Cambridge. The winner of the competition that year was none other than Kenneth Pitchford. Pitchford was also a Fulbright Scholar but at Oxford, starting the year after Plath in 1956. Readers of Paul Alexander's Rough Magic (pages 197-198) will know this name as Pitchford claims to have met Plath aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic in the fall of 1956 and claims, also, that Plath was returning to England after having an abortion.

This poem dates to 1957, during Plath's final months as a student at Cambridge University. Plath submitted the typescript under her married name, Sylvia Plath Hughes, which is unusual. Only one known publication exists under the name Sylvia Plath Hughes.

"Mayflower" is the 46th poem in Plath's Collected Poems, appearing on page 60. "Mayflower" first appeared in print in the 1971 limited edition book Lyonnesse, published by the Rainbow Press.

The Lee-Hamilton Prize was first awarded in 1947. It is named for Eugene Lee-Hamilton. I would like to thank Marjory Szurko at Oriel College, Oxford, for providing me with a photocopy of the poem, a short history of the Lee-Hamilton Prize, and the information about the winner in 1957.

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove...

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de...

Sylvia Plath and McLean Hospital

In August when I was in the final preparations for the tour of Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar sites, I found that I had long been mistaken about a couple of things. This is my coming clean. It was my intention in this blog post to discuss just McLean, but I found myself deeply immersed in other aspects of Plath's recovery. The other thing I was mistaken about will be discussed in a separate blog post. I suppose I need to state from the outset that I am drawing conclusions from Plath's actual experiences from what she wrote in The Bell Jar and vice versa, taking information from the novel that is presently unconfirmed or murky and applying it to Plath's biography. There is enough in The Bell Jar , I think, based on real life to make these decisions. At the same time, I like to think that I know enough to distinguish where things are authentic and where details were clearly made up, slightly fudged, or out of chronological order. McLean Hospital was Plath's third and last...

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