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Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar Translations

The truth is, I really thought I was done buying the property, or former property, of Frieda Hughes. Turns out, I was wrong.

Back on 29 August 2018, there was an auction for seven boxes of books in translation by Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes via Halls Fine Art in Shrewsbury, England. The winner of the lot was a gentleman in every sense of the word called Norman Macdonald. He started listing his new stock online via ABEbooks and included images of many of the books. The provenance to these books is Ted Hughes to Frieda Hughes, and some of the books include letters from Faber passing on the copy/copies of the book(s).

I love translations of The Bell Jar, so I was particularly focused on these as I browsed the collection, which is only partially listed so far through Norman's ABE page. I selected five that wound up being Christmas presents from my wife which fill in missing languages. They are:

Croatian edition, 1991

Dutch edition, 1981

Korean edition, 2013

Serbian edition, 1976

Slovakian edition, 2015

The Slovak translation included one of these aforementioned letters from Faber to Frieda Hughes. A couple of these were new to me and so are now on the Non-English book covers page over at A celebration, this is. And as well, some of the books now have better images, if they were already represented.

These books join other translations: Norwegian, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Catalan, Turkish, Japanese, Macedonian, Estonian, and Slovenian. And I have an edition in Braille, too.

I highly recommend you all view Normal Macdonald's Collection of Sylvia Plath's and Ted Hughes' books and acquire something for yourself. Norman's pricing is fair and his customer service is professional and expedient. It is a unique opportunity to own something with a rich, significant, and unimpeachable provenance.

My parents gave me this Arcturus edition of The Bell Jar for Christmas, too.  It us really lovely.


All links accessed 19 November 2018.

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