Skip to main content

Forget Summer: Sylvia Plath Books in Winter 2013

Is it too early to look at 2013? It is now officially summer, which means the countdown to winter and 2013 has begun. We will lose daylight like I am losing hair...

But, while it might indeed be early, the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Colossus in America has me thinking again about the 50th anniversary of two major Sylvia Plath events that occurred in 1963. The first was the publication of The Bell Jar in England on January 14, 1963; and the second - you might have guessed - was her death on February 11.

Keep in mind since it is so far out, the dates below might change.

On 3 January 2013, Faber will publish a new edition of The Bell Jar. I have been dreaming that Faber can or will re-use the original cover.

And as you might imagine, Plath will be the subject of dozens of articles, but also a few monographs. Below is a list of what's expected so far.

Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson (Simon & Schuster Ltd) 31 January UK ; US.

The Mademoiselle Summer: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 by Elizabeth Winder (Chatto & Windus) 7 February, UK. (Scheduled to be published in the US on 29 January 2013 as Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953).

The word on Winder's book: "In June of 1953, Sylvia Plath came to New York City to work as an intern at Mademoiselle magazine. For twenty-six days, the bright, blonde, 21-year old from Wellesley, Massachusetts would go to Balanchine ballets, have lunch with Mademoiselle’s editor-in-chief, type rejection letters to writers from the New Yorker, stalk Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern and in the hallway of his hotel. She threw all her clothes off the balcony of her hotel and kept only a white bathrobe. She went to the theatre and discovered her signature drink (vodka, no ice). Pain, Parties, Work—the three words Plath used in her journal to describe New York—is an examination of that crucial summer. Winder argues that New York changed Plath’s relationships with men and her friendships with women; and gave her the life experience, for better and for worse, to write The Bell Jar. A biography of a moment in time starring the girl who would become the greatest and most influential poet of the twentieth century." (source: page 8)

We should note that in June 1953, Plath was still 20 years old.

American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson (St. Martin's Press) is scheduled to be published on 22 January 2013.

Carl's book will feature some previously unpublished photographs. One, which will be on the cover, is of Sylvia Plath, taken in April 1954 (just three months after her return to Smith from her suicide attempt and recovery) while Plath was an undergraduate student at Smith College. The photographer was a fellow Lawrence House resident, Judith Snow Denison (Smith 1957, Physics). You can see a small version of the image on Carl's website. The tree in which Plath sits in is in front of Lawrence House.

Interestingly, Denison knew of Plath before matriculating at Smith College, having read the young poets work in Seventeen magazine. (Plath, as you know, published a total of nine stories and poems in Seventeen from August 1950 ("And Summer Will Not Come Again") through April 1953 ("Carnival Nocture"). Her first poem to be printed in the magazine, "Ode to a Bitten Plum," appeared in both the November 1950 and January 1974 issues.) Denison and fellow Smithie Marilyn Martin are among others who provide insight and context into Smith College, Sylvia Plath, and what it was like to be a young woman in the 1950s in Carl's forthcoming biography of Plath.

Carl's book will also publish for the first time a photograph of Frieda and Nicholas Hughes from the mid-1960s after Plath's death. In addition to the images, readers will learn from Carl's research new information about Plath's life.

It is clear that we will have to have clear and open up our reading schedules next winter...

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

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

Sylvia Plath and McLean Hospital

In August when I was in the final preparations for the tour of Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar sites, I found that I had long been mistaken about a couple of things. This is my coming clean. It was my intention in this blog post to discuss just McLean, but I found myself deeply immersed in other aspects of Plath's recovery. The other thing I was mistaken about will be discussed in a separate blog post. I suppose I need to state from the outset that I am drawing conclusions from Plath's actual experiences from what she wrote in The Bell Jar and vice versa, taking information from the novel that is presently unconfirmed or murky and applying it to Plath's biography. There is enough in The Bell Jar , I think, based on real life to make these decisions. At the same time, I like to think that I know enough to distinguish where things are authentic and where details were clearly made up, slightly fudged, or out of chronological order. McLean Hospital was Plath's third and last