Sylvia Plath Collections: Treasures at the Pierpont Morgan Library

October is American Archives Month in the US, so let us look at the first of a few Sylvia Plath Collections I have been sitting on for years!

As with much else at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, their Sylvia Plath holdings are remarkable. As of 14 March 2017, the catalog returns more than 100 records when searching all collections. Certain collections are not applicable, such as Medieval Images Only and Music Manuscripts and Books. But, of those  records there are treasures lurking any reasonable way you sort it.

The items discussed in this post were worked with one day in January 2017 and the excessive delay in posting about it was due to the embargo on anything to the with Plath's letters. My reason for the trip was to work with the letters from Plath to the Merwins and to William and Edith Hughes.

If you want limited editions and rare books, the Morgan Library has something for you to look at. They have several copies of the rare printing of A Winter Ship, including some proofs, an original letter from Ted Hughes to the Tragara Press owner Alan Anderson which includes a typescript copy of "A Winter Ship", and two original letters by Sylvia Plath to Anderson. It was good to find these as Smith College has photocopies but lacked the envelope on which Plath added a postscript. The postscript is fascinating as it was intended for Plath's mother and concerned her childhood friend Betsy Powley Wallingford. Plath sent a letter the same day to her mother and simply wrote the PS on the wrong envelope...  Other limited editions include Above the Oxbow, Fiesta Melons, and The Surgeon at 2 a.m. & other poems to list just a few.

The Morgan also has numerous publications in which Plath's works first appeared including several of The Phillipian from the mid-1940s. Additionally some late publications like London Magazine and The New Statesman, and much, much, more, of course.

Some of these holdings are in the general special collections and were purchased through normal collecting and via auction. This blog has featured a couple of their early poetry manuscripts (4 July 2007, 17 August 2007, and 23 September 2009) that were purchased in the 1982 Sotheby's auction (Lot 96). A great many form part of the Carter Burden Collection of American Literature.

Additionally, I worked with several of the holdings in the Burden Collection and thought it would be good to finally blog about them, to bring them into greater awareness, perhaps?

 

The first item is a first edition of The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962), signed and inscribed by Lessing to Plath and Ted Hughes. Lessing's inscription reads simply,

To Ted and Sylvia

with love from

Doris (Lessing)

14th June 1962

This was a Thursday. Plath's mother was due to arrive for a visit the following week. There is no indication in Plath's 1962 Royal Letts Diary Tablet to indicate if Lessing visited them that day, which according to Plath's notes was a very busy day for errands and things. So it is a mystery to me… I can only think that Lessing posted it, she visited them, or someone brought it to them. Lessing was friendly with the Macedo's and knew Assia Wevill, so perhaps introductions were made through those contacts? The book shows evidence of being read and is mostly free of any reader marginalia. There are faint pencil marking on pages 20, 44, and 46.

While that is undeniably awesome. The main reason for my visit were the Plath items concerning Dido and W. S. Merwin which include five letters from Plath to the Merwins (one also contributed to by Ted Hughes), what I believe is a letter fragment from Ted Hughes, and Merwin's copy of Plath's The Colossus. 

First up, the book. I've worked with several other copies of The Colossus that Plath signed and inscribed to people such as Marcia Brown, so learning of a new copy and working with it was quite special. Plath signed and inscribed her copy of her first book to the Merwin's as follows:

For Dido and Bill
with love—
from Sylvia
October 27, 1960

The image here is not Merwin's copy.

Merwin signed his last name beneath Plath's inscription on the front free endpaper and made pencil markings on poems/pages:

"Departure" p. 19
"The Colossus" p. 20
"Lorelei" p. 22
"Black Rook in Rainy Weather" p. 42
"The Disquieting Muses" p. 58
"Moonrise" p. 66
"Frog Autumn" p. 70
"The Beekeeper's Daughter" p. 75
"The Burnt-out Spa" p. 78
"Who" p. 81
"Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond" p. 84-85
"The Stones" p. 86

The letters to the Merwins were ones I had been looking for for some time; and according to the catalog record the Morgan received them from Burden's heirs in 2013. I am unsure if that means they were visible in the catalog at that time but I guess what matters is that they were found. Each letter below has a link to the catalog record which provides some summary information.

The first letter they have is misdated and at the time of writing my long email with evidence of the correct date has not yet encouraged them to revise the catalog record. They have it dated 28 February 1960. However, since there is a mention of a sleeping Frieda, that is an impossibility! The letter was actually written on 24 June 1960.

The second letter, 7 March 1961, is toward the end of Plath's hospitalization for her appendicitis.

The third letter, circa 30 July 1961, is after their visit to France and Yorkshire.

The fourth letter, 8 November 1962, discusses the breakdown of their friendship after the breakdown of Plath's marriage, among other topics.

There are two other letters. The first is a partial letter from Hughes to Merwin that they have as being part of the circa 30 July 1961 letter mentioned above. There are clearly two different letters. The earlier one is from just after their return to London after visiting Yorkshire with Plath and Plath's mother and is before they agreed to buy Court Green. The second letter is from after their move to Court Green as it mentions sub-letting their flat to the Wevill's and some other business such as Plath's editing of American Poetry Now. As with the first, misdated letter mentioned above, my recommendations to modified the catalog record have not seen any action yet.

The other letter is a carbon of a letter from Merwin to Plath dated 5 November 1962.It was to this letter that Plath responded in her 8 November letter mentioned above.

There is also a stray letter from Plath to her in-laws William and Edith Hughes dated 9 October 1961, a month or so after her move to Court Green.

So a wealth of Plath related archival materials in the form of poems, manuscripts, typescripts, books, periodicals, and more. It was brilliant to get to work with these papers, to visit the reading room again, and spend a day in New York City. If you are ever in or near New York City, please do drop by the Morgan: but write well in advance, admission to the reading room is by appointment/approval only.

All links accessed 14 March 2017