Novelist and biographer Andrew Wilson reports, in the 24-30 November 2018 Radio Times, that The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963 has been selected, like it's predecessor Volume 1 , as Radio 4's Book of the Week. Gen up on Sylvia Plath in today’s Radio Times c/o ⁦ @andrewwilson ready for next week’s @bbcr4 Book of the Week pic.twitter.com/w5CVAA2xdo — Fiona Hughes (@FionaNHughes) November 20, 2018 The letters, which many of you have now read, will be serialized on Radio 4 twice a day next week from Monday to Friday at 9:45 am and 12:30 pm. This is a thrill and honor, and is wonderful exposure both for Plath and for the book. All links accessed: 20 November 2018.

First of all, Happy New Year. In 2013, I kept track of many of the articles published about Sylvia Plath on a special page of this blog. I never intended to see it last the whole year, but it did and proved to be one of the more popularly hit pages. However, the 50th anniversaries of so much ( The Bell Jar  & Plath's death) are now over. I did not want to just delete the data, so here it is in full in its own blog post! All links were accessed and valid on the date of the article published. This page is temporary, but will compile online articles and links that appear surrounding the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, as well as articles about the 50th anniversary of her death.  Additional articles that appear on publications such as Carl Rollyson's biography American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath (St. Martin's Press), Andrew Wilson's Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted (Simon & Schuster),...

Sylvia Plath's friend Elinor Klein described Plath's hair in her article "A Friend Recalls Sylvia Plath" published in Glamour (November 1966: 168, 182-184) as follows: Her yellow hair, which had been lightened several shades from its natural light brown, was shoulder length and had been carefully trained to dip with a precise and provocative flourish over her left eyebrow. Her eyes were very dark, deeply set under heavy lids that give them a brooding quality in many of her photographs. Her cheekbones were high and pronounced, their prominence exaggerated by the faint, irregular brown scar that was the only physical reminder of the suicide attempt. It might be safe to say that everyone going to the Lilly Library at Indiana University wants to see and to touch the cutting's they have of Plath's hair. As such we pay attention to Plath's hair both in images of her as well as in its appearances in her creative writing. At least I do...do you? Some famou...

Again, published today, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson (Simon & Schuster) is available for £20 in hardback; ISBN: 9780857205889. Excerpts have appeared, or will appear in the following print sources: First serial in Mail on Sunday (20th January/27th January); Second serial Observer (3rd February); Sunday Times Culture feature (10th February); Radio Times (5th February); and Stylist (30th January) Look for upcoming print reviews in: Times , Sunday Times , Daily Telegraph , Sunday Telegraph , Guardian , Independent on Sunday , Express , The Scotsman , Evening Standard , and New Statesman . And on the radio: BBC2 “The Review Show” (8th February), BBC Radio 4 “Book of the Week” (11th February), BBC Radio 4 “Today” (5th February). Look for Andrew to appear at the following events and location: Cambridge WordFest, Cumbria Words by the Water, Charleston Literary Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Dartington Ways with Words. Please ...

Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson is officially published today in the United Kingdom by Simon & Schuster. Congratulations Andrew! The biography should be available in traditional book stores (if you can find one) and via Amazon.co.uk . Mad Girl's Love Song will be published in the US (Scribner) on next Tuesday, 5 February. It is available at Amazon.com

In case you missed it, there were two interviews posted today on The Guardian 's website on the topic of Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar . The first interview was with Plath's good friend Elizabeth Sigmund ; the second with the polar opposite, Olwyn Hughes . 1963 Heinemann edition with dedication present Both of these women had a particular relationship to Sylvia Plath and the nature of that relationship shines through quite blindingly. The story came about largely as the result of the Faber edition of Plath's novel, which was first published under Plath's name in 1966. In this edition, and subsequent paperback editions and reprints, the dedication "for Elizabeth and David" was not included (it was included in the 1971 Harper & Row American edition and so far as I know and have looked has never been absent. The missing dedication was the subject of a 1973 TLS article by Elizabeth, which prompted an apology by Faber's Charles Monteith and a rectif...

The Independent on Sunday has two fresh articles on Sylvia Plath in the 6 January 2013 paper. Suzy Feay writes on " Curse that lasted half a century: New biography casts fresh light on Sylvia Plath's legacy " and Lesley McDowell does a brief book review of The Bell Jar . The Feay article is the better and longer of the two. If you can tolerate the re-cap of what's gone on in the last 50 years, you will get some some great information from Andrew Wilson, whose biography of Sylvia Plath's life before Ted Hughes, Mad Girl's Love Song , is being published in either late January/early February by Simon and Schuster. When I first learned of Andrew's project and met him I was instantly attracted to his project because it focuses on a largely overlooked period of Plath's life. His book is must-read material. This is just the beginning, too.

Is it too early to look at 2013? It is now officially summer, which means the countdown to winter and 2013 has begun. We will lose daylight like I am losing hair... But, while it might indeed be early, the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Colossus in America has me thinking again about the 50th anniversary of two major Sylvia Plath events that occurred in 1963. The first was the publication of The Bell Jar in England on January 14, 1963; and the second - you might have guessed - was her death on February 11. Keep in mind since it is so far out, the dates below might change. On 3 January 2013, Faber will publish a new edition of The Bell Jar . I have been dreaming that Faber can or will re-use the original cover . And as you might imagine, Plath will be the subject of dozens of articles, but also a few monographs. Below is a list of what's expected so far. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson (Simon & Schuster Ltd) 3...