Last year I found, through Newspaper Archive online , more articles about Sylvia Plath's first suicide attempt; the search for her; and her discovery from the week of 24 August 1953. The Google Newspaper Archive project has long since stopped (those quitters!), which is a shame, but as we all well know, the search for Sylvia Plath continues... The seven new newspaper articles that I have found brings our total known number of articles up to 183. The articles are: "Object of Search." The Charleston Gazette . August 26, 1953: 1. [photograph of SP included] "College Senior Missing." The Chester (Pa.) Times . August 26, 1953: 2. [photograph of SP included] "Searchers Comb Woods for Smith College Girl." Corpus Christi Times . August 26, 1953: 16. "Missing Student Found." The Daily News (Newport, R.I.). August 26, 1952: 8. "Missing Smith Senior Found." The Times Record (Troy, N.Y.). August 27, 1953: 15. "Second Well

Did you know that on August 22, 1961, Sylvia Plath was efficiently busy. Plath's busyness that day is briefly discussed in " These Ghostly Archives 5: Reanimating the Past ", a paper that I co-write with Gail Crowther. But to give some additional detail... On August 22, 1961: Plath was about nine days away from moving to Court Green... On August 22, 1961: Plath sent her drafts of her poem "Insomniac" to Eric Walter White. Collected Poems generically (generally) dates the poem to "May 1961"; however, Plath dated her final typed copy "May 23, 1961". Good to know. The letter and poetry drafts are held by the British Library in the "Cheltenham Festival prize poems" (ADD MS 52617). On August 22, 1961: Plath sent her drafts of her poem "Tulips" (variant title "Sickroom Tulips") to Jack Sweeney. This poem was written on March 18, 1961, a week or so after her release from hospital from having her appendix removed.

The Wellesley Townsman (formerly The Townsman has been largely digitized which, for a fan of Sylvia Plath, is a dream come true. As of August 2012 (when I found the site and first drafted this post) the images are big and freely downloadable, and the functionality of the website is pretty easy to use. The newspaper articles themselves were OCR'd which can lead to false hits, but beggars cannot be choosers and to be too critical might make it appear that I am not grateful, which I certainly am. The majority of the articles you will find merely mention Plath, but from a biographical standpoint, one gets the sense of some of her activities as a young girl, teenager, and young woman. The date range to look for is 1943 and on; there are fewer mentions after 1955, as one might expect as that was the last time Plath truly lived in Wellesley; though she often used her 26 Elmwood Road address for submitting her work when she was transitioning between apartments, cities, etc. One inte

Salem Press has recently published their second book of essays on Sylvia Plath in their Critical Insights series in the last three years. The first, edited by Janet McCann, contained essays solely on Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar ( my review ). This volume Critical Insights: Sylvia Plath , edited by William K. Buckley , contains all-original essays on Sylvia Plath's life and works. There are contributions by very well-established Plath scholars (Lynda K. Bundtzen and Tracy Brain, for example) as well as contributions by newer writers. Not all of the contributions are by Plath scholars, which leaves the book a little uneven. That being said, readers will surely enjoy the different approaches and perspectives each contributor brings to their piece. Highlights of this book include the essays by Gail Crowther, Tracy Brain, Lynda K. Bundtzen, and Cheryl A. Hemmerle. I also really enjoyed Kathleen Connors essay on the Plath archives and Jessica McCort as its focus is on Plath's