Letters of Sylvia Plath is BBC 4 Book of the Week

The BBC's Radio 4 has made The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1: 1940-1956 its book of the week.

From the website:

Sylvia Plath's renown as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets is beyond dispute, but she was also one of its most captivating correspondents. This radio selection, is abridged by Caitlin Crawford from the remarkable, collected edition of Plath's letters published last week. Edited by Peter K Steinberg and Karen Kukil , it is a work of immense scholarship and care, presenting a comprehensive and historically accurate text of the known and extant letters that she wrote to over one hundred and twenty correspondents, including her husband the poet Ted Hughes, to whom previously unseen letters are now revealed. The programmes offer us a generous insight into the life of one of our most significant poets. Known primarily for her poetry, Plath also wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The book's protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is a bright, ambitious student at Smith College who begins to experience a mental breakdown while interning for a fashion magazine in New York. The plot parallels Plath's experience interning at Mademoiselle magazine and subsequent mental breakdown and suicide attempt.

Despite her remarkable artistic, academic, and social success at Smith, Plath suffered from severe depression and underwent a period of psychiatric hospitalization. She graduated from Smith with highest honours in 1955 and went on to Newnham College, Cambridge, in England, on a Fulbright fellowship. Here she met and married the English poet Ted Hughes in 1956. For the following two years she was an instructor in English at Smith College.

There are five, 15 minute episodes:

1. 1943 to 1951 - Adolescence to Smith College.

2. November 1951 to December 1953 - The Smith College years.

3. January 1954 - February 1955 Convalescence to Cambridge University.

4. September 1955 to March 1956 - Cambridge University to Richard Sassoon.

5. April 1956 to October 1956 - from meeting to marriage. Sylvia and Ted Hughes.

Each program is read by Lydia Wilson; Abridged by Caitlin Crawford; and produced by Susan Roberts.

On 15 October 2017, "Sylvia Plath's Letters: Omnibus" will broadcast.

All links accessed 9 October 2017. Links to individual episodes expire in 29 days from today.

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