The Rosenstein tapes are getting use which is wonderful. I hope everyone accessing them is enjoying them and learning new information about Sylvia Plath and her life, times, experiences, and acquaintances.  Many of the tapes are showing, right now in Emory's The Keep, as undated. This blog post addresses that by presenting the dates listed on Rosenstein's typed interview notes. Email the Rose Library if you want to eavesdrop, too.  I am offering the interview date information two ways, first is alphabetical by last name of the interviewee. The second way is in date order. If so chosen, the latter way allows you to learn information in just the same fashion that Rosenstein did. It is interesting to see revelations, corrections of errors, and the like.  Alphabetical Alvarez, Al: 1970 August 8 Avery, John: 1970 August 3 Axworthy, Nancy:  1973 December 5 Bailey, Norman: circa 1975 February 1 Baskin, Leonard: 1971 December 16 Beuscher, Ruth: 1970 June 16 Blackwell, C...

One of the items in the Big Bonhams auction back in 2018 was a wallet containing seven membership cards (Lot 330) to various organizations such as the Boston Public Library, her drivers license, the Poetry Society of America, and an insurance card with Mutual of Omaha ( see this post, if interested ). The winner of the lot has been selling the cards off one by one. They have appeared in various auction houses ( Nate Sanders  last December for $1500), Barneby's  for $7,500!, and ebay) and formats since that time. At one point some where being offered for obscenely unrealistic prices. Most have sold, I believe.  Minutes ago, Plath's insurance card with Mutual of Omaha was offered for sale via Heritage Auctions. It is signed "Sylvia P. Hughes" and Plath has also filled in her husband's name. The back of the card was filled out by Aurelia Schober Plath as the emergency contact person and includes Sylvia Plath's religious affiliation and blood type which was O. As...

A few weeks back, Gail Crowther and I discussed a bit the Rosenstein audio tapes which have been digitized by Emory and are available to listen to from the comfort of your home or office. It was mentioned, as well, in my talk with Heather Clark and in this blog post .  All one needs to do is write to the Rose Library , sign a waiver, and you will receive a login to access the materials in The Keep. The tapes are really interesting but must be listened to with the volume on high, but beware that occasional shouts and laughter and other noises (phones, babies, toddlers, airplanes, cars, motorcycles, sirens, matches being struck) frequently appear and thus you could blow out your eardrums. Please note there is Ted Hughes material in this as well. And, bonus material is digitized home video from Gerald Hughes' Christmas 1964 visit to England. There are two: one is centered in London and features, very briefly, Ted Hughes and Assia Wevill. Another one is from North Tawton, Yorkshire, a...

Sylvia Plath published two poems in the 6 November 1959 issue of TLS ( Times Literary Supplement ). They appeared just at the end of her time at Yaddo, and mere weeks before she sailed from New York back to England, for good. The TLS is a large format periodical printed on newspaper paper. Back in 1959 the issues were very big, certainly much bigger than it is today. This title is harder to come by, and indeed I believe its format also makes it more difficult to find in the original. But I was able to locate and acquire a copy recently with the help of some "tip" money a few kind people sent. See, I told you I would use it for Plath stuff! How I am going to store it is a question since it is a bigger item and the paper rather more fragile (acidic, brittle) than the kind used in magazines and journals. The two poems were "The Hermit at Outermost House" and "Two Views of a Cadaver Room". Plath submitted them sometime in 1959; just when is not known. Th...

  Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and I are very happy to say we submitted our manuscript for The Collected Writings of Assia Wevill  to the published, LSU Press, last Monday, 26 October. We are very excited to see it in their hands.  The manuscript, including more than twenty photographs and scans of documents we will use for illustrations, stretches to 298 pages. In it, you will read Assia Wevill's life and experiences in her own words with contextual annotations that bring color and information to her texts. We began this project with a vision to assemble Selected Writings back in the spring of 2018 and it is so thrilling to see it to this point, where we of necessity had to elevate it to something as comprehensive as a Collected Writings .  It was an honor and a privilege to work on this project---Julie's third book; my fifth book (the sixth is done, nearly, too)---with Julie, and our contacts at the Press have been marvelous. Thank you, Julie! And, as well, thank you ...