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Victoria Lucas Bell Jar's

I love The Bell Jar. Love it. I love just about everything about it. I love reading it, I love thinking about it and talking about it, I love its publication history, I love the covers...

Anyway, not too frequently do relatively affordable Victoria Lucas (aka Sylvia Plath) editions appear. There were two editions to appear under the name Victoria Lucas: the Heinemann 1963 edition and their sub-edition, printed under the Contemporary Fiction imprint, the following year.

Browsing ABE books, there are presently twenty-something copies available of these editions. The cheapest is about $380. The most expensive? $12,500. The cheaper copies tend to be the Contemporary Fiction sub-edition, the more expensive, as one would expect, the true first. The presence of a dust jacket increases the value substantially: and if the original jacket is a fine condition you'll have to take out a loan.

There are two Contemporary Fiction editions on auction right now through eBay UK. Neither copy has the real, issued dust jacket (though one of them confusingly and contradictorily seems to include a facsimile dust jacket of the first edition. What this seller is trying to do is beyond me).

Anyway, click here (ends 16 May) | or here (ends 22 May) to bid.
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Comments

  1. George Fitzgerald17 May, 2010 18:02

    Update from a moment ago ... checked the mailbox and my copy of CD is here! So much for the other things I planned to do tonight!

    Geo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Peter K Steinberg17 May, 2010 18:36

    George, truly I hope you enjoy the CD. Come back and let us know.

    pks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous17 May, 2010 23:01

    I've seen a photocopy of the original Bell Jar cover for sale on Ebay... weird - kim

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peter K Steinberg18 May, 2010 06:24

    That is weird.

    According to WorldCat, 42 libraries claim to own a Victoria Lucas Bell Jar. Click here (but then sort by "just this edition") to see if you live near one. A photocoopy! Lame!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Peter K Steinberg25 May, 2010 13:38

    One of the auctions didn't see and the seller re-listed the Contemporary Fiction Victoria Lucas for 55 GPB. The auction ends on 3 June.

    Bid here.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous03 November, 2012 09:37

    Hallo dear Peter, one question i have of which i cant find the answer anywhere on books google etc..so i must distutb you..maybe(well certainly) you can help me solve this mistery i have..why Victoria Lucas? I mean, ok, i know the reasons..but why this very name? Is there a precise meaning why she chose it (stupid question Alex! I know.. I dont think Sylvia was doing things random and without a meaning/sense behind) why i mean precisely Victoria and the Lucas as a lastname..? The only explanation i ve heard about it sofar is the one about meaning Victory and Light(<<Lucas in latin) was it a nonsense what i found written on the web (dont remember where now)or is it correct? Again thank u for enlighten me and my unknowledge/voids here and there about Sylvia i have..well i have MANY.and so many more i would like to ask you but simply am not cheeky enough to and i feel shy and also because i dont want to be a nuisance and disturb..but bear with me..each time i come up with my absurd silly questions-for you but not for me(but i ask them cause i really dont know them and do want to know and of which i look for the answer everywhere before coming here and disturb You)im still studying her life/person/works and i consider u like my Plath Guru sort of (no offense please) but take it as a compliment, and full connoisseur-expert and the only one i know on web and whom i admire and his knowledge, to whom i know i can address to and feel quite free to ask when i dont know something or have some doubt. Just please dont start feeling fed up with me. This is the chance/risk i take. Again thank u for everything and all the Symposium updates and everything Peter Thank u for having shared the whole with us! Have a nice weekend. And thank u for the patience with my voids any time ;-)
    Oh btw today,i just saw on the calendar hanging on my wall, while cooking, today the saint of the day is Sylvia! ;-) i wanted to remember to tell u. And yes..poor thing, she actually was a real saint. (<<Ted bla bla bla)

    Sincere and dearest greetings,
    Alessandra (well,who else? ;-) with neverending questions/comments and absurdities and horrific english?)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Peter K Steinberg03 November, 2012 20:45

    Alessandra,

    No worries at all! I think the general opinion on Plath's choice of pseudonym is that Victoria is named after a cousin of Ted Hughes whom Plath liked, Vicki Farrar. And Lucas, after Hughes' friend E. Lucas Myers.

    There may be other reasons of course...

    -pks

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous03 November, 2012 21:07

    Uh. Interesting. As if she wanted to pay tribute to them. Thank you very much Peter.

    Alessandra

    ReplyDelete

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