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Update: The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2

Hello! It is with great pleasure to let  you know that Sunday night, 29 April 2018, I sent in the files to Faber & Faber for The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963.

[twiddling thumbs]

        [still twiddling thumbs]

                       [now what to do?]

The HarperCollins edition,
to be published on 30 October 2018.

The files included the final, final, final, final, final, final (etc.) proof of book itself, the front matter, the image plates & captions, and the index. Having read the volume four times since last August already, I feel it a good book and certainly, obviously, picks up from where Volume 1 concludes. I am sure you have questions. However, as in the aftermath of finishing Volume 1, I am not able at the moment to discuss anything about the volume, so I do appreciate that each of you will not ask questions!  The UK cover is under review; so as soon as it is finalized and I have permission I will post in here and on Twitter, etc. 

Within the turning of one calendar year---the volumes are Irish twins, essentially---we have produced out two massive volumes of Plath's letters! All for you! And my head is spinning at how we did it. Of course the project started years ago and it is hard to remember a time when I was not working on the letters! The two volumes have more than 960,000 words! (The front matter and index easily bumps the word count to more than one million!) I nearly single-handedly transcribed and proofed Plath's letters (more than 1300 of them) and created the vast majority of the more than 3,600 footnotes. In addition, I selected the images, wrote all the captions, secured permissions, etc. My mantra throughout the project was a line from Plath's poem "The Rabbit Catcher": "There was only one place to get to." Well, we are just about there and to know that the second volume is 128 days (or just over 4 months) from publication, and thus into your hands, fills me with an enormous sense of happiness.  

It has been the privilege of my life to work on these books for you. I did my best and gave everything that I could to try to ensure that the text you read is as close as possible to the text of Plath's original letters (look for my tell-all book later in the year to be published by Career Enders, Inc.). Early mornings, sleepless nights: day in and day out, in sickness and in health, with probably fewer than a week of days off in the course of the project. My deepest thanks for the trust placed in my by Frieda Hughes. 

Look for The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2, to be published by Faber and Faber on 6 September 2018; and by HarperCollins on 30 October 2018. 

All links accessed 29 April 2018.

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Comments

  1. suki01 May, 2018 08:12

    Good on you Peter. Really looking forward to this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amy Rea01 May, 2018 08:16

    CONGRATS! And thank you so much for all your hard work!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Peter Fydler01 May, 2018 08:34

    Well done... Can't wait to find out what the LAST LETTER is!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous01 May, 2018 08:54

    oh my God!! I'm SO happy SO thrilled! thank u, Peter and CONGRATULATIONS from the bottom of my heart and my soul, thank you so much for all your hard work; it is OUR privilege to have the honour to have the opportunity and the luck and the gift from u to be reading this second volume of the letters. I'm so excited for it, can't wait to have it here. thank u for this amazing (and not only this!) new work of u. now u need all the good and well deserved rest, physical and mental rest, u so much need. thank u endlessly Peter. My best and dearest congratulations.

    Alina

    ReplyDelete
  5. rdalpay01 May, 2018 15:37

    So excited to read this book. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to this project.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Eva Stenskar01 May, 2018 20:44

    I'm so looking forward to this book! Love the passport photo on the cover. Thank you thank you thank you for all the hard work. How does it feel now that it is all over?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unknown02 May, 2018 06:54

    Mine is already pre-ordered! Congratulations, and thank you for your hard work. I know when I finished Volume 1 I felt such a void in my life where Sylvia's voice had been- I can only imagine how it feels after years of working on a project such as this.

    ReplyDelete
  8. A Piece of Plathery02 May, 2018 09:38

    The biggest of HURRAHS and I have ordered the US and UK editions :) xxxx

    ReplyDelete

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