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Additional Articles on Sylvia Plath's Disappearance

Those familiar with this blog know that Sylvia Plath's first suicide attempt is a topic I have covered in years past. Not just in blog posts, but at length in my article "'They Had to Call and Call': The Search for Sylvia Plath", published in 2010. Since that time, many new articles have been located. In fact, the bibliography of articles that appeared in that paper had the number of found articles at 172. As of today, including recently found articles listed below, there are 196. This increase of 24 articles shows that the search for Sylvia Plath continues.

So far this year, I have found four new (to me) articles. Two articles each from the Detroit News and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. For those not up on the lingo of our suthun' Cajun-Creole-French brothers and sisters, a picayune is actually not a great thing at all. Of its uses, it can mean "petty; worthless" (as a adjective) and "a small coin of little value, especially a 5-cent piece" (as a noun).

"Long Hike." Detroit News. August 26, 1953: 46.
"Missing College Girl Found Under Porch." Detroit News. August 27, 1953: 11.
"Woods Scoured for Missing Girl." The Times-Picayune. August 26, 1953: 5.
"Missing College Girl is Located". The Times-Picayune. August 27, 1953: 10.

One might spend time revisiting previous posts on this blog using the tag "First Suicide Attempt"; but that might be cumbersome. In order to present the current full list of articles I have compiled, I have therefore added a page to my website for Sylvia Plath, A celebration, this is. On the Bibliography page, click "Articles on First Suicide Attempt" to access the list (or click here directly). It is a work in progress, as any bibliography is, and will therefore updated whenever new articles are located or better information (if applicable) is made known to me.

If you live in a town or city that has newspapers on microfilm, please consider going and looking at newspapers for articles from 24-28 August 1953. Maybe we can all grow this list to make it a little longer and more comprehensive. Whether or not you find anything, please email me (see contact page) and let me know what you have checked. And many thanks in advance if you do.

All links accessed 7 February and 31 July 2015.

You can see a bibliography of articles on Plath's first suicide attempt, and read PDF's of them, over at A celebration, this is.
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  1. Anonymous24 August, 2015 08:04

    My sister was one of the Wellesley Brownies (the junior edition of Girl Scouts) that looked for Sylvia at Morses Pond in late August 1953. She remembers one of Sylvia's neighbors talking to another adult who said (before she was discovered), "Sylvia is beautiful, brilliant, and emotional."

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