Today, 14 November 2023, was the Bonhams Fine Books and Manuscripts auction of twenty-five lots of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes books from the property, or now former property of Frieda Hughes. In the last few years, the Plath and Hughes rare book market has been simply flooded with stock but this has not, at least in the case of Plath who is more collectible than Hughes, meant that prices in the rare and antiquarian book market has stalled or leveled off.  As I have done in the past, here are a list of the sales. All prices below show hammer price first and then the final price including the buyer's premium. Please see the Bonhams website for pre-auction valuation estimates. In addition to the property of Frieda Hughes, there was a scarce uncorrected proof of the Victoria Lucas edition of The Bell Jar  in: Lot 72 :  This gorgeous book is estimated to sell for £4,000 - £5,000 (US$4,900 - US$6,200) and ultimately went for £6,144. Estimated: Untracked Hammer Price: Unt...

The following are the lots in the 14 November 2023 auction of The Property of Frieda Hughes of Sylvia Plath (lots 108-118) and Ted Hughes (lots 94-107) items. Ted Hughes: Lot 94 : HUGHES (TED) Meet My Folks!, FIRST EDITION, DEDICATION COPY, INSCRIBED, Faber and Faber, 1961 Lot 95 : HUGHES (TED) The New Poetry. A Selection Selected and Introduced by A. Alvarez, FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY TED HUGHES TO HIS PARENTS, 1962; 3 carbons TH poems of 1960s, and annotated copy of Moorehead's Cooper's Creek (6) Lot 96 : HUGHES (TED) Wodwo, FIRST EDITION AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED "To Walter [Hughes] & Alice with love from Ted, May 67", Faber and Faber, 1967 Lot 97 : HUGHES (TED) Animal Poems, UNIQUE PRESENTATION COPY, ONE OF SIX COPIES INTERLEAVED WITH ALL 14 POEMS WRITTEN OUT BY THE AUTHOR, AND AN ADDITIONAL 18 POEMS ADDED IN MANUSCRIPT, [Richard Gilbertson, [1967] Lot 98 : HUGHES (TED) The Iron Man, FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENT...

Bonhams Knightsbridge is set to auction more than two dozen lots of books from the library and collection of Frieda Hughes that she was either given or inherited from her parents, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.  The date of the auction is 14 November 2023.  Copies of works by Sylvia Plath include: A Winter Ship, The Colossus, The Bell Jar, Ariel, Three Women, Crystal Gazer and Other Poems, Pursuit, Letters Home , and much, much more. Copies of works by Ted Hughes include: The Iron Giant, Birthday Letters, Howls & Whispers, Poems by Emily Dickinson, Animal Poems, Moortown Elegies, Meet My Folks!, Crow, The Iron Man, Wodwo , and more.

Of the many reasons to accept the offer to teach Sylvia Plath at the Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes Summer School at Lumb Bank in Heptonstall, Yorkshire, one of the perks of the offer was the midweek day off from teaching in which the group journeyed to Haworth to visit the Brontë Parsonage and make the walk to Top Withens, the house that is rumored to have inspired Emily Brontë's beautiful, haunting, and perfect novel Wuthering Heights , have a pint at the Black Bull and walk around the village. The program of teaching with Heather Clark at Lumb Bank was a good one. I had the morning class from 9:30 to 11 am. Heather taught after a 30 minutes break from 11:30 to 1. Then lunch, followed by a varying schedule in the afternoon that saw some visitors (Steve Ely, Pascale Petit, and Carrie Smith) and some downtime. My class was upstairs in the barn and we focused on Plath's novel The Bell Jar . I overprepared, in that I did not get to cover everything that I planned. And this included ...

Following the sale last year of all my books by and about Sylvia Plath (including works by and about Ted Hughes, Frieda Hughes and Assia Wevill, too), this blog post is to announce that more materials are now at Utica University. I am grateful to Distinguished Professor of English Gary Leising for getting a Plath course permanently a part of the curriculum, and to James Teliha, Dean of the Library & Learning Commons, for their willingness to acquire these items.  This collection of materials consists of the following: Archival copies of 172 poems (plus a few other poem-related things); Archival copies of 177 prose works; Archival copies of letters to, from, and about Sylvia Plath (more than 1,890 items); Photocopies of periodical and early book appearances ( view list here ); A few odds and ends like copies of unpublished manuscripts (biography, memoir, etc.); A digital collection on a flash drive of 455 photos of SP; and 296 Printed photographs I took of Plath's houses and ot...

I am pleased to promote the Sylvia Plath Symposium at Hunter College in New York City which is to be held at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College on Thursday, 30 March 2023. The address of the venue is 47-49 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10065. The Symposium is organized by Paul Alexander , editor of  Ariel Ascending: Writings about Sylvia Plath  (1985), author of Rough Magic:  A Biography of Sylvia Plath (1991), and author of Edge (2003), a one-woman play about Sylvia Plath. The Keynote speakers are Kathleen Chalfant reading Plath's poems followed by a conversation between Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem..  Before that, throughout the day, there will be three panels including the following participants, in alphabetical order, is Susan Cheever, Heather Clark, Mark Doty, Amanda Golden, Richard Kaye, Donna Masini, Honor Moore, Eva Salzman, Vijay Seshadri, and Peter K. Steinberg. I will be participating in Panel 1 on Plath's works with A...

2023 is the 60th anniversary of the publication of Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar  by Heinemann. It also marks---today, in fact---the 60th anniversary of Plath's death. Where is Sylvia Plath now?  Bigger than ever. More widely read than ever. There are still people desecrating her grave due to some heinously flawed thinking and beliefs. And, too, there are still legions of inconsiderate, insensitive people out there that crassly make mental health jokes at her expense. This is a sad, sad thing.  There are several Sylvia Plaths out there. "Popular culture" Sylvia Plath is massive. But, she is very different from both the literary Sylvia Plath and the actual Sylvia Plath.   Popular culture Sylvia Plath's reputation is somewhat death-centric. Maybe this will never change and that is simply sad, too. Popular culture Sylvia Plath is defined by her "depression" and her death. It sees in her life and in her writing nothing but depression and death. It does...

It is an immense honor to have been asked to teach on Sylvia Plath at the Ted Hughes Arvon Centre,  Lumb Bank, located in Heptonstall, England, in June 2023. The Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes Summer School course runs from the 18th to the 24th of June 2023, and I will be joining Heather Clark and Steve Ely, among others.  Together, we will explore the work of Sylvia Plath (and Ted Hughes) in Hughes's Yorkshire home. My own classes will focus on Plath's prose, specifically The Bell Jar . Timing is everything as I had to re-buy a copy of the novel after I sold all my books to Utica last June!    Spaces at the summer school are limited, so if you are interested in the course, please do register . I am very much looking forward to and am grateful beyond expression for this opportunity. And, I am looking forward both to meeting new people and seeing old friends.    All links accessed 11 December 2022.