Last December, a fellow Sylvia Plath reader Peter Fydler asked me a question about Sylvia Plath's English tripos book "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber" submitted as part of her Fulbright fulfillment at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, in May-June 1957. Specifically the contents list of the volume. I did not know the answer. Turns out we took a convoluted route in trying to piece it together. First looking at the Cambridge Review from 7 February 1969, which focused on the recent find of the manuscript of the book in the English faculty library at Cambridge and featured both some essays on Plath and printed several poems by her that were included in the manuscripts. The manuscript contained 43 poems. Though initially Plath envisioned it being slightly larger. On 21 November 1956, Plath wrote to her mother, "My own book of poems (now titled "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber") grows well, and I should have 50 good poems by the time I submit it to the Yale...

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath in Benidorm: A Study Week a residential course with Terry Gifford and Lorraine Kerslake At Almàssera Vella: October 3rd – 10th 2015 "Spain Where I felt at home. The blood-raw light, The oiled anchovy faces, the African Black edges to everything." --Ted Hughes "...but I am, in my deep soul, happiest on the moors – my deepest soul-scape, in the hills by the Spanish Mediterranean." --Sylvia Plath A RESIDENTIAL STUDY WEEK. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes wrote some 35,000 words about their experiences in Benidorm whilst on honeymoon there in 1956. During this week we will be visiting the house they shared in 1956 and the quay at Alicante where Ted Hughes described his new wife as: "… in moonlight, / Walking the empty wharf at Alicante / Like a soul waiting for the ferry," We will be discussing aspects of their work, including poetry, prose essays, fiction and letters. The course is designed to suit interested readers o...