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Two More Things...

  • For those in the Asheville, North Carolina area look for Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath at the Asheville Community Theatre's 35below, located at 35 E. Walnut St. Show time is 7:30 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, July 1-17, Tickets are $15.

    Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath     stars Elisabeth Gray and is "a multimedia tragicomedy about suicide, with talking ovens, cooking shows and poetry." (source) It was performed at the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Oxford back in October 2007 (review).

    I've heard that Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath is going to be Off Broadway in New York City later this year. More details as they become available.

  • In May, I posted that the book collector's magazine Firsts featured articles on Plath and Olive Higgins Prouty. I received a copy pretty quickly. It contains a long biography of Plath under the title "What's the Deal About Sylvia Plath." It's heavily indebted to the likes of Paul Alexander and a few others. I understand it can't be printed in color due to cost (I imagine), but the illustrations and article in general would have been so much more attractive and I could have then completely overlooked the fact that the biography was so heavily indebted to Alexander. And of course there are silly inconsistencies such as the writer's claim that Ariel was first published by Heinemann on page 29. The silly factor comes just after you turn to page 30 to the price guide where it lists Faber, correctly, as the publisher. There are other things I'm sure but I'm trying to be less snarky. Unless y'all like that kind of thing, in which case I'll bring on the snark...

    Firsts     coverage of Plath caps off with a mini-price guide to first and limited editions by Plath, as well as a few biographies, memories and related books. The price guide is a little disappointing, so if others out there are interested in collecting, or determining what's worth what, consider the Sylvia Plath Author Price Guide put out by Quill & Brush. While essentially a bibliography with prices, it's far more complete. Of course the other way to obtain the prices of rare or limited edition Plath books is to go to ABEbooks.com, type in your information and sort by highest price.
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