So what did you think of Sylvia Plath in 2019? It seemed to be a year dominated by Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom , the short story published in the UK and the US in January and then which started appearing in translations. It is wonderful a newly published short story could kind of captivate its readers across the globe, which I think is a great sign that Plath--and her work--is in demand. As in the past, this is a look back at the year as I lived it. It seems I spent most of January publicizing the story on the blog, as well as the real Mary Ventura, who was a friend of Plath's in Wellesley in the mid-to-late 1940s. I spent most of the month of January, too, packing up my belongings and changing jobs and states. Sadly I still do not feel settled but, well, I will get there eventually. It is weird not being in Plath's backyard any longer after twenty years… But, you probably do not want to read my moaning, you want to read about Plath. At any rate, I think Mary Ve...

The following guest blog post book review of Sylvia Plath in Context  is by Amy C. Rea. Thank you, Amy. Sylvia Plath in Context , edited by Tracy Brain, is a set of wide-ranging explorations of influences that have played a role in Plath's development as a writer. The book is grouped into sections covering literary, literary technique and influence, cultural contexts, sexual and gender contexts, political and religious contexts, biographical contexts, and Plath and place. While there are topics that have been covered in depth in the various biographies (the role of women in the 1940s and 50s, for example), this collection goes further by looking at topics like food, teaching preparation, scrapbooks, and the book packaging of various editions of Ariel and The Bell Jar . It's a valuable continuation of the process of extracting Plath's form of genius out of the strict biographical contexts she's been all too often forced into. To keep this post from falling into TL;...

Whoever says that you cannot learn something on Twitter is wrong? Icy day in Knoxville! A good opportunity to see this 1945 #SylviaPlath original in our #SpecialCollections . Here’s a peek of “King of the Ice” by a Plath, age 12 (Patricia Cornwell Collection) @UTKEnglish pic.twitter.com/UlqEbL99qM — Chris Caldwell ⚡️ (@RareBooks37996) November 12, 2019 So, Chris Caldwell is a Sylvia Plath influencer. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has a several precious Sylvia Plath items in its Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives . The first two items mentioned here are a part of the Patricia Cornwell Collection. The first item they have is a manuscript copy of Plath's poem " King of the Ice " written on 10 January 1945. Plath wrote about the poem in her diary that day saying that once she got home from school and a music lesson, she set to work on a letter, story, or poem for the Phillipian , her junior high school newspaper. The assig...