Most of the evening last night I spent organizing my notes and photographs, renaming files frim IMG_9938 to something more meaningful like "Heavy_Women_original_The_Bell_Jar". This, in particular, is a reference to some papers in Plath mss., that first Plath collection the Lilly Library acquired. The finding aid for this reads, "Removed from verso of typescript fragment of The Bell Jar." Another poem, "Small Hours" has text related to the novel, too: "verso of typescript fragment of The Bell Jar." Looking further down the finding aid, there is a cross-reference under The Bell Jar's entry: "'Small Hours' and 'Heavy Women' removed from versos." So I wanted to see these pages to make sense of how the poems were removed from the typescript pages.
The typescript is page 136 and there are two copies. The scene of the novel depicted is when Esther Greenwood tells her family doctor "I can't sleep. I can't read" Teresa then refers Esther to Doctor Gordon. There are a total of ten typed lines. The rest of that side of the page is black. There are tape residue marks on both typescript pages.
On the back of the page, Plath handwrote her name at the top right and on each page, had taped the respective poem. Normally in archives one can remove one folder at a time. This reduces the chance of putting something back in the wrong place. However, I was given permission to remove the folders for "Small Hours" and "Heavy Women" and see which poem was adhered to each typescript page. The poems were typed on pink Smith College Memorandum paper with autograph corrections. On the back of "Heavy Women" is some Ted Hughes prose writing about "finding my thoughts systematically" through fishing.
Reading yesterday's post and the above, perhaps you recognized something I just did? Plath sold these papers in late 1961. The Bell Jar was finished; the contract for it to be published had been signed. Plath was adamant that the novel not be published under her name and did not want it published in America. The page referred to in this post does not reveal very much information about Plath and the real events that went into the novel, but she willingly sold pages of the novel to an American library where she knew researchers eventually would work with her papers. Plath did change her mind about the novel and America. She and Heinemann actively sent it to US publishing houses in late 1962 and early 1963. Perhaps her change in heart about it was due to the breakdown of her marriage and her need for more income?
There is a third page 136 of the novel on the back of a typed draft of "The Babysitters". Additional typescript pages on other pages of the October 1961 poem are 271, 270, 279, and 269. 269-271 are set in at Harvard and Irwin's flat. Olga, the "bosomy Slavic" woman Irwin sends away, was originally named Sasha; Doctor Nolan was originally Doctor Horder. A cut passage discusses the reader of Esther's ability to read after her first shock treatment and a frank realization about not graduating with her class; being delayed a year in college. Page 279 is the scene with Doctor Quinn looking for Joan, though in this typescript she is Jane. There is cut text in this scene where, upon learning the Jane/Joan character is missing Esther feels a "queer, leashed excitement" at the thought of hospital employees searching for her.
Potentially useless information about Ted Hughes in Plath mss II: He was paid, after $13.40 was withheld for taxes, $73.60 weekly by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His first pay stub erroneously listed his name as James E. Hughes.
Potentially useless information about Sylvia Plath in Plath mss II: She was paid monthly when teaching at Smith College. Her October 1958 stub is missing; but otherwise it appeared she was paid $350 a month from September 1957 through February1958. After taxes and FICA were taken out, she brought in a net total of $299.52. From March to May, Plath was paid $389.50 a month, taking home $330.94 after taxes. Her take-home in the June 1958 check covered the rest of the year through August: $1,229.51 ($1,439.50 before taxes).
Conducting research is exhausting. One tends to not be able to turn off one's brain at all during the day or the night. If you are not dehydrated, starving, fingers with papercuts, dry-eyed, hunchbacked, slight smelly, and mostly non compos mentis at the end of a day of researching you spent too much time away from the collections.
Day Two started with continuing to look through Box 9 at the typescript of Letters Home. And I polished off, too, my review of Box 13. I saw something in there years and years ago, or at least I thought I did. But it must have been somewhere else as after searching the entirety of the box, what I thought I saw was not there. This is a bummer.
I spent time also in boxes 11, 12 and 14. Towards the end of the day I looked again at Box 15, which is one I remember looking at last visit in 2015. It is always a good idea to revisit boxes and folder because something observed on a previous visit might take on a new significance based on something that may have been learned with the passage of time. In Box 12 I concentrated on Plath's Smith College course notebooks. In her Religion class, she was more likely to doodle and draw a flower than any other thing in Creation.
Through two days, though, I have already gone through more than I had planned. So things have been going smoothly and efficiently, which is wonderful. Tomorrow is Day 3, my final day, and I must needs leave before the library closes which means I have less time then normal. Which is fine.
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