In March, the Beinecke Library opened the recently processed collection of the Lois Ames Collection of Sylvia Plath. The finding aid is online here , and there is a convenient option to make a PDF which is, in some ways, easier to read. In my earlier post last year about the acquisition, as well as in this post from 2023 , I commented on a comment made by Mrs Plath about how Ames "stole both materials (manuscripts of Sylvia's) and snapshots from me." So I was fascinated to work with the papers on 23 and 24 March 2026 to see if I could make sense of Mrs Plath's claim, and, as well, see the materials that represent the start of the industry of Sylvia Plath.  What I encountered, though, was an enormous absence.  There are two boxes of correspondence, most of which feels like it is drafts of letters Ames wrote as well as some carbons of letters sent. There are incoming letters, but the majority of these are from Ted Hughes, Mrs Plath, Olwyn Hughes, and Harper & Row, ...

If you have about 50 minutes of time, and we all do, so do not think you do not, please give The Scholar’s Armchair #3 a watch.  The title of the programe is " Female Identities: Plath, Magazines, and Food " and it's a conversation between Dr. John Burton and Professor Caroline Smith on her work with Plath, food magazines, and much more.  Caroline Smith is the author of Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs ( University Press of Mississippi, 2023 ) and  Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick Lit ( Routledge, 2007 ). All links accessed: 16 March 2026