The recent identification of three of Sylvia Plath's drawings was fun. I enjoyed discussing these with Anna Dykta and bouncing off ideas and discussing the nuances of Plath's artwork as well as her travels. The drawing of a dome/tower labelled "Paris rooftops" in Drawings  (page 30, 2013) was another of Plath's pen and ink works about which I wondered, for years: where is this? For a while I have been convinced this was not drawn in Paris. For a while I was convinced based on the evidence Plath left, that it was drawn in Madrid. She wrote in a 7 July 1956 letter to her mother, "If only you could see me now, sitting in haltar and shorts seven stories high above the modern tooting city of Madrid on our large private balcony with gay blue-and-yellow tiles on floor and wall-shelves, pots of geranium and ivy, and across, baroque towers and a blazing blue sky even now, going on eight p.m. Ted is inside writing on another fable and I just finished a detailed design ...

Back in 2020, an unfinished drawing by Sylvia Plath appeared, and sold, via auction . The winner was a lucky person, as Sylvia Plath drawings are rare and unique. The drawing does not appear in 2013's Sylvia Plath: Drawings . The reason being it first appeared at auction in 2006, so it probably was no longer in Frieda Hughes' possession as was the case with the rest of these drawings that were part of the Mayor Gallery exhibition and sale. Likely as not because there was so little information about it; though there are unfinished and unidentified works included in that book. Annually, around May for some reason, I search for this church. Plath's life is so well-documented that one practically knows her whereabouts for any given day. Using her letters and journals and pocket calendars, I created a list of all the times she mentioned drawing or sketching something in an effort to trace this unfinished village church scene. Based on what is visible, I did not think it was Engl...

In the last few months there have been a number of books published by and about Sylvia Plath. So, this is just a small post to acknowledge them.  Of course, there was The Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath which Faber issued last September. The paperback was on schedule to be published this fall but it has been bumped to April 2026 to coincide with the publication of The Poems of Sylvia Plath edited by Amanda Golden and Karen V. Kukil .  Last August, Carl Rollyson's Sylvia Plath Day By Day Volume 2: 1955-1963  was published by the University of Mississippi Press. This was followed by his The Making of Sylvia Plath  in November 2024 and published by the same press. Also in November, Heather Clark's Sylvia Plath: A Very Short Introduction was brought out by the Oxford University Press. Faber issued a new edition of Sylvia Plath's The Bed Book in January with illustrations by Cindy Wume. And, on 3 July 2025, Faber are issuing "Heritage" editions of her Ariel (sele...

I am grateful to Amanda Golden for letting me know the other day that Yale University's Beinecke Library has acquired two Plath family collections. The basic archival accession records are linked below. Main collection  (21 boxes) Addition  (2 boxes) There is not much to go on at this point in time, but the main collection includes "Correspondence, writings, photographs, printed material, artwork, personal papers, records, realia, and other papers by or relating to Sylvia Plath and the Plath family." And the addition has "Books, correspondence, photographic prints, audiovisual material, stamp collection, and other papers created by, or, related to Sylvia Plath and the Plath family." It may be a year or so before the collection is open to research; however, some parts will be closed until 1 January 2059. There are possibly other criteria that may allow for the closed materials to be made available. In addition to holding Sylvia Plath materials, there are likely d...