Jonkers Rare Books of London recently reported the theft of a first edition of The Bell Jar by Victoria Lucas [Sylvia Plath]. This 1963 edition is price-clipped. Please see the ABAA security "Missing and Stolen Books Blog" . Theft in the rare book world - and anywhere else for that matter - is a terrible shame. If you read this blog and have a blog of your own, please spread the word in hopes that the book can and will be recovered. Thank you.

The Daily Mail in England published an article on some of the content of the letters between Ted Hughes and Keith Sagar, which is soon to be published by the British Library. In " The string of bad luck and accidents that killed Sylvia Plath: Letters reveal former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes was haunted by wife's suicide ," article author Chris Hastings sensationalizes what is likely a minor aspect of the forthcoming book, Poet and Critic: The Letters of Ted Hughes and Keith Sagar , regurgitating what is old news to Plath's &Hughes' readers. Eleven years ago, when the British Library first acquired the Sagar-Hughes correspondence, Emma Yates at the Guardian - among others - published " Drugs a 'key factor' in Plath's suicide, claimed Hughes ". Now, it was "news" then. It is not news now. Now, that being said, genuine thanks to ~VC and KZ for passing on the link! Poet and Critic is on sale in May 2012 and can be purchased fr...

On 27 April 2007, Sylvia Plath Info Blog began with a post that I hope has been enacted and kept up like a promise. At the time I started this blog, I was unable to update my website for Sylvia Plath, A celebration, this is , and I saw this medium as a platform to make announcements about new books, provide updates on the Symposium at Oxford that year, etc. Now, however, I cannot stop! Like the speaker of "Getting There": "...and the train is steaming. Steaming and breathing, its teeth Ready to roll, like a devil's." Thank you all for your encouraging and valuable comments, and for your visits over the past five years. Thank you also for the guest posts that occasionally appear here, too. If you are interested in such a thing, please contact me. This blog would never have survived with you, its readers and followers. Let us keep steaming. And 77th Happy Birthday Warren Plath.

In the Sylvia Plath Collection at Mortimer Rare Book Room, there is a typescript of a poem entitled "Desert Song." Plath dated this poem April 21, 1955 and submitted it to her creative writing professor Alfred Young Fisher as part of the course requirement. "Desert Song" remains unpublished to this day, but the poem is about, well, it is a sex poem - or lack thereof in the metaphor of an arid desert in want of saturation. The course for which this poem was submitted was a special study course in creative writing which Plath most certainly earned based on her academic credentials, her success in publishing her creative writing in both local and national periodicals, and the promise of her future in the field of poetry and creative writing. On the verso of this typescript, in Plath's hand and in pencil, she cryptically made note of a date (29 April), a page number (30) and a newspaper title (Union). It is evident from the typescript being dated 1955 that Plath ...

Saturday 21 April will see the release of the Twentieth Century Poets stamp series in the US. As we know, Plath is one of the featured poets. Taking my inspiration from the technophiles [ahem, losers] who eagerly await new devices, I will be taking off work & life in order to camp out at the post office to be FIRST IN LINE. Someone please bring me coffee... The stamp is a "forever" stamp which means the price you buy it at will be good for first class postage no matter future price adjustments. In some ways it pains me to think that someone will send me a stamp with a big postal cancellation stamp on Plath's face, but it would also be nice to receive real mail...

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de...