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Read bits of Heather Clark's The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

For Thanksgiving...through Oxford University Press’ web page for Heather Clark’s relatively imminently forthcoming book, The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, you can read the “Introduction” in PDF format. Thank you OUP for giving us this preview of Clark’s eagerly anticipated book.

Also, the book is on Amazon.com too with a Look Inside! feature that is generous. Thank you Amazon.com.

(The cover on Amazon.com is not the same as that which appeared in the recent Plath Profiles 3 Supplement. I totally dig the whole library cover, very gorgeous, but I much prefer the book cover on the advertisement.)

Google Books has it, too. Thank you Google Books.
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Comments

  1. Anonymous25 November, 2010 09:57

    Thanks for these links, Peter. I've read the excerpts and am very much looking forward to the book. Of course, none of this is 'news' to serious readers. But, while Hughes' influence on Plath has been assumed, the influence of her work on Hughes later work has not been discussed enough. --Jim Long

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  2. Peter K Steinberg29 November, 2010 09:28

    I'm very much looking forward to it too, Jim. I do think Clark will bring a very fresh perspective to this topic, one that will illuminate the two-way influence. I just wish my review copy would hurry up and arrive!!

    pks

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  3. panther30 November, 2010 13:55

    I wonder if this book will ever make it into softback ? I know it's a scholarly text, which means a smaller print-run, which incurs more costs. . . but £50 is quite a lot for one book, however good. It sounds fascinating. Perhaps I'll split the cost of the book with a friend and we can take turns reading it !

    Jim, I agree with you. It's always assumed (rightly so) that Hughes influenced Plath but it's high time that the reverse was also stated. I don't think it's a difficult case to make.

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  4. Anonymous01 December, 2010 09:28

    Hey Panther--
    No, it's certainly not a difficult case to make -- especially as it applies to "Birthday Letters", some of which, as Clark comments, are "more confessional than anything Plath ever wrote". --Jim Long

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  5. Peter K Steinberg01 December, 2010 13:25

    Phew, heard back from Heather & Oxford University Press that the cover displayed on Amazon & Google is some kind of strangely generic created cover and not actually a cover sanctioned by the Press. Might've changed the way we read the book.

    Panther, I wonder if you could be able to get the book via interlibrary loan or something? Otherwise, I do think a book-crossing type thing seems a right fine idea.

    pks

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  6. Melanie01 December, 2010 20:48

    Panther, bookdepository.co.uk has it for 39 pounds in hardback and that includes shipping.

    I am looking forward to this very much.

    ReplyDelete
  7. panther02 December, 2010 11:09

    Thanks, Melanie, it's good to know that. Perish the thought that one of the Plath books which really does sound worth reading and re-reading should be the one I can't afford !

    Certainly, Jim, the influence is there in Birthday Letters. But throughout the work, I think, in dribs and snatches. I'm thinking of WODWO, Hughes' first collection after SP's death (it came out in Britain in 1967). Sorry I can't quote from it right now but there is a lot of grief in those poems. His griefs, clearly, but echoes of hers too.

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