The following is a guest blog post by Annika J. Lindskog from Sweden on her recent visit to Sylvia Plath's grave in Heptontsall. Thank you, Annika! In June this year, I finally had the opportunity to visit a place I had long wished to see: Sylvia Plath's grave at Heptonstall in Yorkshire. Like many other Plathians, I hold a strange fascination for places associated with Plath and have previously visited many of the 'sites', both in the UK and the US (including a lovely and much appreciated tour around the Boston area with Peter in 2008). For someone who doesn't live in the UK, Heptonstall is a bit 'off', though, which is probably why it's taken me so long to get there. Referring to Plath's grave as a 'site' feels a bit disrespectful to me, because it is a grave. I couldn't help but feel that visiting this grave felt a little like trespassing on somebody else's tragedy. Death is personal, after all. At the same, though, I wanted to

The ABAA accredited Appledore Books of New York recently list a slew of mighty appealing Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes books on their website. Enamored as I am with first editions, rare books and the like, I wanted to write about them as it has been a while since Plath books for sale have been mentioned on the blog. I wrote to Appledore asking if there was any significant provenance to these books as they all seemed to be in similar condition. Bryan wrote back saying that they were acquired via auction. This being the case, it is very difficult to determine from where they came. However, given the condition they all appear to have been well cared for and intentionally collected. Ladies first... The Plath books are: Ariel (London: Faber and Faber, 1965) The Bell Jar (London: William Heinemann (Contemporary Fiction), 1964) The Bell Jar (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) The Colossus (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962) Crossing the Water (Uncollected Proof) (London: Fabe

On 18 August, I was fortunate to give a tour of some Sylvia Plath sites to four women involved in the current The Bell Jar film adaptation: Kirsten Dunst (director), Dakota Fanning (lead actress), Lizzie Friedman (Producer, Priority Pictures), and Brittany Kahan (Producer, Echo Lake Entertainment). To my surprise, I was not nearly as nervous as I thought I would be. In part because I know the sites like the back of my hand, and also because all four were very relaxed and engaging and put me instantly at ease. We started in Winthrop where we saw Plath's house at 92 Johnson Avenue before carrying on to Deer Island and Point Shirley were we experienced Plath's writings in living color. Armed with the Journals of Sylvia Plath , her Collected Poems , and of course a copy of The Bell Jar , I read selected passages in situ which helped contextualize the real places Plath wrote about in her works. This exercise illustrated how she may have made creative changes after recording them