Now that the holiday season is upon us... Do you have 10 quid hanging around. If so, you might think about getting yourself a Sylvia Plath Ariel coffee mug . The mug reproduces Faber's 2001 publication and woud likely make drinking coffee, tea, hot chocolate (with Bailey's) a more intense experience. This also seems an appropriate time to give notice that according to Amazon.co.uk, look for a new hardback edition of Ariel on 6 May 2010 . See Plath's pages on Faber's website here .

In October, my review of Alix Strauss' Death Becomes Them , led to some temporary uncertainly over Aurelia Plath's whereabouts on 24 August 1953 - the afternoon of Sylvia Plath's first suicide attempt. Was she at the theater? Was she at a friends? In Wellesley? Or in some other town? Thanks to BrigetAnna, ~VC, and Jim Long for pointing out that this is something Strauss got right (see the comments section). I recently had occasion to review the Boston Daily Globe for August 24, 1953. I learned that the film Aurelia Plath saw was called A Queen is Crowned . ( Amazon.co.uk ) A Queen is Crowned was playing at the Exeter Street Theater , at 26 Exeter Street, at the corner of Exeter and Newbury Streets in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. That day, Aurelia Plath likely saw the 2:10 p.m. showing. (Sylvia Plath was born at ... wait for it ... 2:10 p.m. She was 20 years old (or, 2 x 10). Plath signed the contract for The Colossus in London on 2/10 (1960). And, 2/10 (1963) was...

Sylvia Plath has been the subject of numerous interpretations. Plath's life and works have been adapted and performed both in dramatic and cinematic fashions, as well as in other ways. Some are remembered, some are not... Did you know that in 1976 and 1978, the dancer/actress Margaret Beals put on "Stings" in New York? "Stings" co-starred Lee Nagrin and Brooke Myers, and first appeared at the Kauffmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Avenue). The first performance was on 23 May 1976. It was revived briefly in 1978 for 16 performances beginning on 9 May, this time at Beals' own Theater in the Loft.

At 5 p.m. on 13 November 2009, Catherine Bowman will be at the Woodberry Poetry Room. She will be both reading from her collection of poems The Plath Cabinet and playing recordings of poems by Plath (and possibly Ted Hughes and Anne Sexton, too). If you are in the area, please come to the informal event, it is free and open to the public. The Woodberry Poetry Reading is in Room 330 of Lamont Library at Harvard. In conjunction with this event, I've created a little exhibit entitled "Sylvia Plath: The Disquieting Muse". Items featured in the exhibit include a first edition Heinemann The Colossus , a typescript of "The Disquieting Muses" with a typo, the reel tape boxes from Plath 1958 and 1959 Harvard recordings , and a few other items and photographs. The exhibit will be up for a while. The picture here is intentionally small... Also coming up next weekend, 13-15 November 2009, the 33rd Boston Antiquarian Book Fair is on at the Hynes Convention Center (T t...

More items of interest to pass on in addition to the recently published articles I posted on yesterday... EvaClaire Albion Wright, at the Sophian , the weekly student press at Smith College, ran an article this week on the Mortimer Rare Book Room, " Rare Book Room allows student interaction with charming collection ". As someone who has worked a lot in the Mortimer Rare Book Room, I can't say enough how wonderful and accurate this article was to read. Thanks to Gail Crowther for sending on " Church featured in BBC's Jam and Jerusalem desecrated by vandals ", an article that ran in The Telegraph . This is the Church that Court Green faces ; and about which Plath wrote about in the poem "The Moon and the Yew Tree" and the short story "Mothers". On 25 November, Olivia Cole of The Spectator reports Frieda Hughes will read with Don Paterson, herself, and others at the The Spectator Boardroom, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP betw...

Recently published is Jane Hedley's I Made You to Find Me: The Coming of Age of the Woman Poet and the Politics of Poetic Address (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2009). In this work is an essay titled, "Sylvia Plath's Ekphrastic Impulse" (pgs 71-102). Other poets examined in I Made You to Find Me are Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich and Gwendolyn Brooks. The chapter on Plath appears to have grown from Hedley's essay "Sylvia Plath's Ekphrastic Poetry" which appeared in the Spring 2001 issue of Raritan (Vol 20, No. 4), pages 37-73. Hedley's is a good article. While the original was written prior to Eye Rhymes , it doesn't seem to acknowledge this important work when it may have benefited from it. Also, out now is an essay by Arielle Greenberg and Becca Klaver in the Fall 2009 issue of College Literature (Vol 36, No 4). "Mad Girls’ Love Songs: Two Women Poets—a Professor and Graduate Student—Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and ...

Today, Harper Perennial publishes the Olive Edition of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The The's: The book format is trade paperback. The ISBN is 0061849901. The price is $10. The cover is purple. The addition of this edition to my collection is welcome. UPDATE: 4 November 2009: On the back cover of the book it says that this Olive Edition is a Limited Edition.

The good people at the Lilly Library quietly acquired some of Trevor Thomas' papers earlier this year. The T. Thomas mss, ca. 1976-1990, "consist of the correspondence, writings, legal depositions, poetry, typescript of his autobiography, and poetry of Trevor Thomas, b. South Wales, 1907. Appointed Keeper of the Department of Ethnology in the City of Liverpool Free Public museum, Thomas became a nationally known specialist in primitive art and for his innovative exhibition displays at the museum. Thomas was living in the apartment below Sylvia Path at the time of her death by suicide. "The collection includes correspondence between Thomas and Aurelia Plath following her daughter’s suicide; correspondence with Linda Wagner–Martin, a biographer of Plath, including a typescript copy of parts of her book and an inscribed hard copy of the published text, Sylvia Plath: A Biography. It also includes legal documents, news clippings and testimony regarding Ted Hughes suit against ...