This August, director Robert Shaw's version of Sylvia Plath's "Three Women" will be on stage at the Edinburgh Festival . What you need to know: Where: Assembly Rooms, 54 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2LR, Scotland Phone: 0131 623 3030 Website: Assembly Festival When: Thu 6th Aug - Mon 31st Aug Cast: Neve McIntosh, Louisa Clein, Lara Lemon Thanks to Jo Gill for bringing this to our attention. She and others discussed this on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Woman's Hour , on 30 July. Those in the UK may be able to listen to it...

One: If you are in the Northampton, Mass. area this summer and fall, you might want to stop by the William Alan Neilson Library to see their exhibit on Yaddo, " Unconquered by Flames: The Literary Lights at Yaddo ", curated by the amazing Karen V. Kukil . The exhibit opens in mid–August and continues through October. Two: If you are in St. Petersburg, Florida, you can see Paul Alexander's biased play Edge on stage at a theatre called The Studio@620. No longer starring Angelica Torn, this Edge stars Marcy J. Savasano. 620 First Ave. S., St. Petersburg, Florida When: August 6-9, 13-16, 2009, Thurs, Fri, Sat @ 7:00 pm, Sunday Matinees @ 1:00 pm Pricing: $30 front row seating, $25 general admission, $15 students and seniors, Phone:727-895-6620 Web: studio620.org

Plath Profiles 2 is just around the corner, but in the meantime, Plath is receiving attention in other scholarly journals. Scott Knickerbocker recently published "'Bodied Forth in Words': Sylvia Plath's Ecopoetics". This paper is in College Literature 36:3, Summer 2009, pages 1-27. Here is Knickerbocker's abstract: "Plath demonstrates a combined interest in the texture of the natural world and the texture of language, which in her poems enacts and does not merely represent that world. Her unfortunate categorization as a 'confessional' poet as well as critics’ obsession with her biography have resulted in, on one hand, an underestimation of Plath’s engagement with the “real world” beyond her subjectivity, and on the other hand, an insufficient consideration of the craft and formal properties of her poems. She was, from an early age, drawn to the natural world, although she was equally fascinated by the sounds of language. Plath’s sense of ir...

The John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester holds the Critical Quarterly archives, 1958-1989 . Within this collection are some Sylvia Plath related materials. The Critical Quarterly was an important publisher for Sylvia Plath and she both placed a number of poems with them, and edited their 1961 supplement (No. 2), American Poetry Now . The reference code for the collection is GB 133 CQA. The full, online catalogue (finding aid) is online here . Plath related materials can be found in the following series and files: CQA1: Papers relating to Critical Quarterly writers and contributors File 106: Plath, Sylvia ([1961]-18 Oct 1976) Materials include photocopies of typescripts of "Two Campers in Cloud Country" and "On Deck" and 27 poems by various contemporary poets typed by Plath for American Poetry Now, and other materials. In CQA1, there is also a Ted Hughes file (CQA1/1/65), which also contains references to Sylvia Plath. CQA5: Pa...

The Bell Jar , often considered depressing by those compelled to see Plath's own end and that of the novel as one and the same, contains in its very first chapter, an indication that everything would be alright for Esther Greenwood. At her internship at Ladies Day magazine, she and the other girls were given presents, which they considered "as good as free advertising." (4) These presents - a reminder of a stressful and dark time - were tucked away for a while. "But later, when I was alright again," Esther says, "I brought them out...and last week I cut the plastic starfish off the sunglasses case for the baby to play with." (4) This statement, perhaps more so than the cliff-hanger ending of the novel, guarantee's a 'happy ending' to The Bell Jar . The source of a river or lake is the point origination of the water's flow. For Sylvia Plath, a source for much of her creative writing was her journals. Sylvia Plath's Journals , publis...

My only vice is that I can't get enough Plath. In the 14 July 2009, Sotheby's London auction of English Literature, History, Children's Books & Illustrations, there were several Plath items that both sold and failed to sell. The biggest money maker was a first edition of Sylvia Plath's The Colossus (Heinemann, 1960) for £17,500. The copy was signed and inscribed by Plath - on her birthday - to her high school English teacher, Wilbury Crockett. The lot included a Christmas card from 1960 with a note from Plath to Crockett. Also at this sale were the following Plath items: Two early manuscripts of Plath's , which sold for £5,000. Illustrated typescript poem in the form of a handmade "get well" card , which sold for £4,000. Early typescript poem in the form of song lyrics entitled "Class Song - 1950" , which did not sell. Plath's copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay's The King's Henchman: A Play in Three Acts , which did not sell. The li...

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams , like almost every other book by (or about) Sylvia Plath, has an interesting publishing history. It first appeared in 1977 in England, published by Faber in that shockingly orange dust wrapper . It was re-issued in paperback with additional material from the Sylvia Plath Materials held at Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington, in 1979*. On January 2, 1979, Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams first appeared in the US, published by Harper & Row. Did you know that Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams was published in Sweden before it was published in the United States? Noveller och annan prosa was published by Trevi (Stockholm) in 1978. The translations were completed by Margareta Tegnemark. The Harper and Faber contents still do differ, with the Faber edition including two earlier stories Plath wrote in 1949, "The Green Rock" and "A Day in June". On the heels of the US publication was the Japanese translation Jo...

This post is a follow-up on the recent BBC Poet's Guide to Britain, which featured Sylvia Plath's poem "Wuthering Heights" (as well as "The Great Carbuncle" and "Hardcastle Crags" a.k.a. "Nocturne" and "Night Walk")... Amazon.co.uk lists a book version of A Poet's Guide to Britain , Owen Sheer's recent BBC Four series highlight six poets and six poems about inspired by the beautiful British landscape. The cover, left, features nice notches, don't you think? Reminds me of Hilda's hats ("Bile green. They were promoting it for fall, only Hilda, as usual, was half a year ahead of time. Bile green with black, bile green with white, bile green with nile green, its kissing cousin.")! The product description, pasted below, is rambling. Just read the last sentence to know what the book, a tie-in anthology, will include. "Six films about six very different poems from six different places in the British Isles...

Over the last few months, I've been adding books and information to Sylvia Plath's Library on LibraryThing . Having recently re-read Plath's Journals (edited by Karen V. Kukil, 2000), I added information about what books Plath was reading, and when. The information contained in the catalog includes the date read and page number in the 2000 Journals of Sylvia Plath (or, in the US, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath ). The best way to find these new books is to search for "Kukil" in the search box when viewing the cataloged books in library. There is still plenty of information to add, but wanted to let you know that reconstructing her library is a work in progress. If you have information on titles not listed in the library, or information to add to the library, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincere thanks in advance.