Several years ago I worked with Sylvia Plath's copy of Ayn Rand's novel The Foutainhead. In a blog post about that experience, I made a table listing the page numbers on which she made annotations and comments. Too little attention has been paid to Plath's annotations.
I had in mind when I did the aforementioned blog post to spend more time with Plath's library but the whole Letters of Sylvia Plath project kind of took over my life. Part of the thrill of The Fountainhead was that it was, and still is, held privately so it was a privilege to both work with it and present the information to you.
However, for this blog post, I chose to do a book held by Smith College: e.e. cummings i six nonlectures (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954). Plath was given this copy in 1955 by her Smith classmater Sue Weller with the inscription:
Below is a table of page numbers and the kinds of annotations that appear on each page respectively.
I had in mind when I did the aforementioned blog post to spend more time with Plath's library but the whole Letters of Sylvia Plath project kind of took over my life. Part of the thrill of The Fountainhead was that it was, and still is, held privately so it was a privilege to both work with it and present the information to you.
However, for this blog post, I chose to do a book held by Smith College: e.e. cummings i six nonlectures (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954). Plath was given this copy in 1955 by her Smith classmater Sue Weller with the inscription:
for Syl,I should remind you that I reassembled, via LibraryThing, a catalogue all the books Plath owned, read, used for papers, mentioned, etc.).
in memory of a
delightfully, indolent
spring vacation.
Sue–
1955
Below is a table of page numbers and the kinds of annotations that appear on each page respectively.
Page
|
Annotation
type (underline, star, marginal line, text)
|
ffep
|
Inscription
by Sue Weller
|
3
|
Vertical
line in left margin
|
4
|
Underline
|
5
|
Underline
|
7
|
Underlines;
two stars: one in left margin; one in
right margin |
12
|
Underlines
|
15
|
Underlines
|
16
|
Underlines
|
18
|
Underlines
|
19
|
Underlines
|
20
|
Underlines
|
23
|
Underlines;
Vertical line in left margin
|
24
|
Underlines;
Double vertical line in left margin
|
26
|
Underlines
|
27
|
Underlines;
Vertical line in left margin
|
29
|
Underlines
|
30
|
Underline
|
32
|
Underline
|
35
|
Underline
|
38
|
Underlines
|
43
|
Underlines
|
45
|
Underline
|
47
|
Underlines;
Vertical bracket in left margin;
Vertical line in left margin |
51
|
Underlines
|
52
|
Underline
|
53
|
Underlines;
Vertical line in left margin
|
54
|
Underline
|
68
|
Underline
|
69
|
Underlines
|
111
|
Underlines;
Star in right margin
|
If you benefited from this post or any content on the Sylvia Plath Info Blog, my website for Sylvia Plath (A celebration, this is), and @sylviaplathinfo on Twitter, then please consider sending me a tip via PayPal. Thank you for at least considering! All funds will be put towards my Sylvia Plath research.
All links accessed 31 July 2019.