Again, published today, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson (Simon & Schuster) is available for £20 in hardback; ISBN: 9780857205889. Excerpts have appeared, or will appear in the following print sources: First serial in Mail on Sunday (20th January/27th January); Second serial Observer (3rd February); Sunday Times Culture feature (10th February); Radio Times (5th February); and Stylist (30th January) Look for upcoming print reviews in: Times , Sunday Times , Daily Telegraph , Sunday Telegraph , Guardian , Independent on Sunday , Express , The Scotsman , Evening Standard , and New Statesman . And on the radio: BBC2 “The Review Show” (8th February), BBC Radio 4 “Book of the Week” (11th February), BBC Radio 4 “Today” (5th February). Look for Andrew to appear at the following events and location: Cambridge WordFest, Cumbria Words by the Water, Charleston Literary Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Dartington Ways with Words. Please ...

Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson is officially published today in the United Kingdom by Simon & Schuster. Congratulations Andrew! The biography should be available in traditional book stores (if you can find one) and via Amazon.co.uk . Mad Girl's Love Song will be published in the US (Scribner) on next Tuesday, 5 February. It is available at Amazon.com

The following is reproduced from the forthcoming Bonham's auction catalogue for The Roy Davids Collection: Part III. Poetical Manuscripts and Portraits of Poets. First Session (A-K) by permission of Roy Davids. It is published here for the first time, prior to the appearance of the catalogue. Please verify descriptions with the printed/online catalogue just in case any of the information changes. Lot 372 [PLATH, SYLVIA 1932-1963)] and TED HUGHES (1930-1998) THE COMPLETE WORKING PAPERS FOR THE FIRST VERSION OF TED HUGHES'S ESSAY ABOUT SYLVIA PLATH'S POEM, 'THE EVOLUTION OF SHEEP IN FOG,' comprising the autograph manuscript, revised typescript written in the form of a typed and autograph letter signed ('Ted') to Roy Davids as notes for a lecture, with autograph revisions and comments (' This is very hugger mugger - but it covers, with a specific example, the points we talked about at the weekend'; 'Puppet lecturer begins to speak'; '...

"There's never been a poetry sale like it, and I'm sure there won't be another" (Roy Davids) This is to let you know that I am selling my poetry collection, forty years in the making, in 526 lots at Bonhams in London on 10 April (A-K) and 8 May (L-Y) this year. The sale comprises both poetical manuscripts (about 450) and portraits of poets (about 170). There will be a two volume catalogue. The highlights among the manuscripts include: T.S.Eliot, 'The Journey of the Magi'; Sylvia Plath, 'Sheep in Fog'; Auden, 'Stop all the clocks'; Keats, part of the draft of 'I stood tiptoe upon a little hill'; Gerard Manley Hopkins, a draft of 'Binsey Poplars'; Ted Hughes, 'The Thought-Fox'; Rudyard Kipling, 'Recessional'; Robert Lowell, 'Fall 1961'; Siegfried Sassoon, poems from the First World War and the 1920s (including 50 unpublished poems); Christina Rossetti, 'Remember me when I have gone away'; ...

In case you missed it, there were two interviews posted today on The Guardian 's website on the topic of Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar . The first interview was with Plath's good friend Elizabeth Sigmund ; the second with the polar opposite, Olwyn Hughes . 1963 Heinemann edition with dedication present Both of these women had a particular relationship to Sylvia Plath and the nature of that relationship shines through quite blindingly. The story came about largely as the result of the Faber edition of Plath's novel, which was first published under Plath's name in 1966. In this edition, and subsequent paperback editions and reprints, the dedication "for Elizabeth and David" was not included (it was included in the 1971 Harper & Row American edition and so far as I know and have looked has never been absent. The missing dedication was the subject of a 1973 TLS article by Elizabeth, which prompted an apology by Faber's Charles Monteith and a rectif...

Fifty years ago today, 14 January 1963, The Bell Jar by Victoria Lucas (Sylvia Plath) was published. The creation of and publication history of the novel is one of the more fascinating aspects of Plath scholarship. The secretive nature in which it was written - undated, the exact start and completion date are still unknown as of right now- as well as the process by which Plath saw it accepted and published, change the way in which we might consider Plath as a business woman. In fact, the process by which she saw all of her work come to print is something like leaves me feeling envy and awe: certainly not the image of your 1970s neurotic Sylvia Plath. Plath did tell some of her friends and colleagues that she was writing a novel, but was very reticent to divulge too many details. One of the earliest references - if not the earliest - appears in a letter to Ann and Leo Goodman dated 27 April 1961, in which Plath writes she is more than a third of the way through a novel on the subject...

Scholar Ann Skea has recently added a number of new chapters to her " Sylvia Plath's Ariel and the Tarot " page. New chapters 2, 3, and 4 are now on line and examine: 2 looks at "Thalidomide", "The Applicant", "Barren Woman", and "Lady Lazarus" . 3 looks at "Tulips", "A Secret", and "The Jailer" . 4 looks at "Elm", "The Night Dances", and "The Detective" . Additionally, and though they may be subject to change, chapter 5 and 6 and what is included in them is also presented.

Above in the list of tabs going across the header area, I have have started a page for " 50th Anniversary Articles on Sylvia Plath ." This will be for articles on The Bell Jar , her death, as well as articles on the two forthcoming biographies by Carl Rollyson ( American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath ) and Andrew Wilson ( Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted ). I'll continue to add links to articles as they are published. Links only guaranteed to be valid at the time of posting.

Yesterday, I visited Smith College for a couple of reasons. One was to look at Sylvia Plath's copy of The Complete Plays and Poems of Shakespeare: A New Text (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1942.). The other reason was to bore to death, I mean, talk about my website (and blog and Twitter) on Sylvia Plath to a group of students taking part in a documentary editing course taught by the estimable Karen V. Kukil. Barbara Blumenthal took these pictures of the students before they each, in turn, fell asleep. Like dominoes . I audited this very course last year and it was a ton of fun. PS: I do not believe any of the students actually fell asleep! They were all kind, attentive, and very gracious to listen to me.

The Independent on Sunday has two fresh articles on Sylvia Plath in the 6 January 2013 paper. Suzy Feay writes on " Curse that lasted half a century: New biography casts fresh light on Sylvia Plath's legacy " and Lesley McDowell does a brief book review of The Bell Jar . The Feay article is the better and longer of the two. If you can tolerate the re-cap of what's gone on in the last 50 years, you will get some some great information from Andrew Wilson, whose biography of Sylvia Plath's life before Ted Hughes, Mad Girl's Love Song , is being published in either late January/early February by Simon and Schuster. When I first learned of Andrew's project and met him I was instantly attracted to his project because it focuses on a largely overlooked period of Plath's life. His book is must-read material. This is just the beginning, too.

Faber's 50th anniversary edition of The Bell Jar is officially published today (though it was made available in December 2012). I typically encourage people to purchase directly from the publisher, however, if you are not (do not reside) in the United Kingdom, then you may not be able to order directly from the publisher. I tried to order it for delivery in the USA and was told they were unable to ship to my country because they do not have the rights to sell it here. Amazon.co.uk, however, can . Good luck. --- On 1 January, Sam Jordison at The Guardian  selected Plath's The Bell Jar  as the January Reading Group selection. Read the fine article and its comments here .