Sylvia Plath's Copy of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim: Upcoming Auction

On 10 July at Sotheby's, the Joseph Conrad collection Collection from the Library of the late Stanley J. Seeger - Part I goes for sale in London. Of the 193 lots, one in particular strikes the fancy of this Sylvia Plath-o-phile... Lot number 31.

The description of Sylvia Plath's copy of Lord Jim reads: "8vo. Sylvia Plath's copy, bearing her signed bookplate and extensively underlined with numerous annotations by her, additionally annotated by Ted Hughes ("I read this novel, this copy, aloud | to Sylvia, in the evenings, while | she was making her rag rug - 1962. | Ted Hughes" on rear free endpaper, original red brown cloth lettered in gilt on spine and upper cover, dust-jacket, extremities bumped and sunned, occasional scribbles in green felt-tip, significant loss to dust-jacket"

The estimate is £6,000-8,000.

News of this copy coming up for sale was featured in "Sylvia Plath's copy of Lord Jim on sale as part of huge Joseph Conrad auction" in The Guardian on 13 May 2013. Plath items at auction have recently also been featured on this blog, including a rare uncorrected proof copy of a Victoria Lucas Bell Jar (post 1, post 2) and a typed letter signed by Plath that sold in 2012. You can also search all posts on this blog labeled "Auction".

If you are interested in books formerly belonging to Sylvia Plath, considering checking out Sylvia Plath Library on (the recently redesigned) Librarything! Plath's library is not complete (we will never realistically know all the books she read) but it should give you a good idea of what she owned, what she read for school, etc.

All links accessed 1 July 2013.

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...

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