The Houghton Library at Harvard University recently received and processed the Stephen B. Fassett correspondence . Fassett lived at 24 Chestnut Street, Boston , just around the corner from Plath and Hughes. He was an audio engineer who recorded many of poets during the era. I worked the the papers in this collection on 29 August 2017. There is a letter from Ted Hughes and a Christmas card signed by Sylvia Plath as well as letters from Dido Merwin, W. S. Merwin, John Lincoln ('Jack') Sweeney, and with the Estate of Isak Dinesen. All text below from the "Scope and Contents" from the finding aid to the collection. Ted Hughes correspondence Item 1. Letter to Stephen and Agatha Fassett (from 3 Chalcot Square, London, England) Date: 1960 May 14 Scope and Contents: Hughes provides an in-depth description of his and Sylvia Plath's return to England: "the perfect superhuman jungle, through which we have come" and the "two week ordeal of searching ...

Did you know that on August 22, 1961, Sylvia Plath was efficiently busy. Plath's busyness that day is briefly discussed in " These Ghostly Archives 5: Reanimating the Past ", a paper that I co-write with Gail Crowther. But to give some additional detail... On August 22, 1961: Plath was about nine days away from moving to Court Green... On August 22, 1961: Plath sent her drafts of her poem "Insomniac" to Eric Walter White. Collected Poems generically (generally) dates the poem to "May 1961"; however, Plath dated her final typed copy "May 23, 1961". Good to know. The letter and poetry drafts are held by the British Library in the "Cheltenham Festival prize poems" (ADD MS 52617). On August 22, 1961: Plath sent her drafts of her poem "Tulips" (variant title "Sickroom Tulips") to Jack Sweeney. This poem was written on March 18, 1961, a week or so after her release from hospital from having her appendix removed....

Fifty years ago today, on August 22, 1961, Sylvia Plath sent her friend Jack Sweeney, then curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room, a letter and enclosed the worksheets/drafts of her poem "Tulips." Did you know that shortly thereafter - about two months - Sweeney put the poem on display at the Woodberry Poetry Room? The first notice of the exhibit appears in the "Metropolitan Boston Calendar: A Guide to This Week's Events" in the Boston Globe on October 29, 1961, on page 74. The notice reads, "A manuscript poem ("Tulips") on display at Lamont Library." Additional notices about the exhibit ran on November 5 (page 67); November 12 (page 65); and December 10 (page 83), of the editions I browsed via microfilm at the Boston Public Library. The worksheets and letter are now held by the Houghton Library (which oversees the Woodberry Poetry Room) and can be requested for research. It is one of only a few of the Ariel poems not held by Smith C...

I want to follow up on Plath's rejected titles for the Ariel poems. The poem "Tulips" had three variant, rejected titles: "Sickroom Tulips", "Sickroom Tulips in Hospital", and "Tulips in Hospital". These drafts are not a part of the Smith College holdings as Plath sent the autograph manuscript drafts and a typewritten draft with autograph annotations to her friend Jack Sweeney. Sweeney in turn gave the poems to the Houghton Library at Harvard in 1966. What Smith College does have are later typescripts, including some proofs for the poems publication in the New Yorker . I took this photograph of Plath's grave with tulips on 11 February 2003.

The Houghton Library at Harvard University has a small Sylvia Plath collection. The finding aid for the collection is online here . I work at the Houghton Library and will try to see the collection sometime soon. The collection consists of two drafts of a poem entitled "Sickroom Tulips" ("Tulips"?) and a letter to John L. "Jack" Sweeney, a Harvard professor and friend of both Plath and Hughes. Click here for a good biographical history of the Sweeney's. The contents of the collection, as described in the finding aid, are: (1) Plath, Sylvia, 1932-1963. Sickroom tulips. A.MS.s.; [n.p., 1961]. 3s.(3p.) env. (2) Plath, Sylvia, 1932-1963. [Sickroom tulips] TS.s. with A.MS. revisions; [n.p.] 18 Mar 1961. 2s.(2p.) (3) Plath, Sylvia, 1932-1963. A.L.s. to John Lincoln Sweeney; London, 22 Aug 1961. 1s.(2p.) With A.MS. poem by Ted Hughes "You roam with my every move" on the reverse side.