By mid-October 1961, Sylvia Plath was already thinking about Christmas as she and Ted Hughes were hard at work making Court Green in North Tawton not just their own, but also livable. She mentioned in letter dated 13 October that year of her desire to make her daughter Frieda Hughes a doll's wood cradle. Christmas likely sprung into her mind as she had recently received a from her mother mentioning that she would be sending her granddaughter a doll for Christmas. The subject of the cradle was mentioned in general in subsequent letters to Aurelia and Warren Plath on 18 December 1961 and to her Aunt Dorothy Benotti on 31 January 1962. In " These Ghostly Archives 4: Looking for New England ", Plath scholar Gail Crowther discusses this very doll's cradle (see pages 44-47; an image of the cradle appears on page 45). Working with the documents Plath and Hughes created is one thing: particularly those which bear evidence of both the poets such as poetry or fiction manuscri...

Emory University recently put a finding aid online for the Sylvia Plath collection, 1952-1989 . A small collection, but one certainly with significant materials for the Plath scholar. The items were purchased in 2014 and include: Folder 1: Compass , Southeastern Massachusetts University, Summer 1987 Folder 2: Mademoiselle , January 1959 Folder 3: The New Yorker , August 3, 1963 [2 copies, one annotated by Aurelia Plath] Folder 4: Smith Review , Fall 1952 Folder 5: Smith Review , Spring 1953 [annotated by Aurelia Plath] Folder 6: Thomas, Trevor, Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters , 1989 [inscribed from the author to Richard Larschan and includes a letter from Thomas to Larschan and several clippings about the work] The material in folder 1, Compass is the the magazine of Southern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), and features an article by Maeve Hickock titled "Aurelia Plath and Richard Larschan". The article is about the video produ...

The following is a transcription of the public statement offered by Peter K. Steinberg of the Sylvia Plath Info Blog, which aired on Seattle's WC 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 (the Starbucks Network) this morning at 4:01 A.M . local time. For the last eight years, Sylvia Plath Info Blog has been providing posts on Sylvia Plath covering a range of topics including archival materials, to newsworthy events, books and book reviews, and quasi-live blogging from conferences. Unfortunately, much the content and information presented has been done so under the influence of performance enhancing drugs. Admitting this at this point in time (I was going to hand write it in the attempt to have it come off as more sincere) is a big step for me in conquering the problem. Continually I had intended to try to break free of the grip these drugs have had on me. But to no avail. I want to apologize deeply and sincerely if I have let any of you down as a result of this admission. Kindness--in the form of co...