All Sylvia Plath Most of The Time

Upon my last flight home from England I wrote a long blog post so felt like it was an appropriate us of time, when not partaking of quantities of free alcohol to neutralize the turbulence of flying against the wind, to do so again. From 21-28 October I was in England, as you might know. The purpose of the visit was a talk at the British Library on the 23rd October with The Letters or Sylvia Plath co-editor Karen V. Kukil, as well as scholar and biographer Heather Clark and poet Mark Ford. I am a terrible judge of my own performance, but I hope the event was conducted and performed, by each of us, successfully. It was terrific to see familiar faces and friends, and, as well, to meet so many new people. I did not get to meet as many people as I had hoped.

I have recently learned that the event was recorded! And once it is made available online I will add a link here, as well as sent out a notice on Twitter.

An informal pub meet-up at the Lamb on Lamb's Conduit Street, near Rugby Street and the Church of St. George-the-Martyr where Plath and Hughes were married, before the British Library was a lot of fun. Thank you to Peter F, Lydia W, Emily Van Duyne, Elizabeth Lowry, Sarah Fletcher, Sam, Di Beddow, Heather Clark, Suzanne D, Diane D, and Gail Crowther for coming! I had meant to take photos but just did not get the chance.

The same day as the event, Faber published a blog post I wrote on their website about the Letters. It was a follow-up piece to the one they published after Volume I came out. It was really nice to be able to sort of conclude the project this way. I hope that you enjoy it.

As part of this visit, of course, I dragged my wife, I mean, we visited a number of Sylvia Plath related sites in London. So this blog post is primarily to show some of the photographs I took in London. After the event, my wife and I invaded Gail Crowther's home for a few nights and we enjoyed some rest, beautiful drives, clear air, hikes, terrifically narrow and windy roads, and scenery as well as fantastic food and conversation.

On the first day we conveniently found ourselves in Primrose Hill to photograph 3 Chalcot Square and 23 Fitzroy Road.

I took two 360 Theta photographs, too: 3 Chalcot Square | 3 Chalcot Square |  23 Fitzroy Road | Primrose Hill.

As luck would have it, we were lodging just down the road from the BBC where Plath regularly visited the Broadcasting House on Portland Place.

Plath never visited the Lakes District, and neither had I before this visit to England. The following is from a hike about halfway up Black Combe where visible were Blackpool, Wales, Yorkshire, the Isle of Man, and even Scotland. On a really clear day you can see Ireland, but we were not so lucky.

Looking out to see from Black Combe

On our return to London, we stayed in Mayfair and as such were wandering the streets and came across Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly which was a favorite of Plath's and Hughes's for birthday presents. We also passed the Connaught Hotel, where Plath and Hughes stayed for a night in August 1962 after seeing The Mousetrap.  Then also passed by the nearby Claridge's Hotel, where Plath visited in 24 April 1956 to cover the Bulganin and Kruschev event for Varsity. (Her prose piece "B. & K. at the Claridge" was published in the Smith Alumnae Quarterly in Fall 1956.)

We wandered all over and found ourselves strolling through Trafalgar Square one last night and then I remembered Plath's journals... printed in Appendix 11 is a drawing of one of the fountains, she writes of having her back to the National Gallery and looking at the back of Nelson's Column and across the square to the "red & white checked flag flapping in blue sky over Canadian Pacific clock".

Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom!

Backtracking a bit... On the day of the Plath event I visited Faber for the first time which was awesome. It was so exciting to visit the offices of the publishers of the Letters of Sylvia Plath and to meet some of the people before and at the event. It was really special, to put faces and voices with names. During that visit, coincidentally, I had an email from another member of Faber's staff asking to review the final text of a press release that had been in progress for weeks about the forthcoming publication of a short story by Sylvia Plath entitled Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom (Amazon). It was an exciting yet stressful few days polishing off the text, revising commentary, and then answering a slew of queries from Richard Lea of The Guardian for their article announcing the publication which was published in their print edition on Plath's birthday. The announcement seems to have been greeted on social media with a lot of enthusiasm which is terrific.

All links accessed 29-30 October 2018.