It has been quite some time since a "Sylvia Plath: Did you know…" appeared on this blog so I thought I should remedy this unintended gap. Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar (1963) is a fun book to read for its hidden messages and allusions. Plath carefully and consciously manipulated time and people to construct a work based off of many experiences in her own life, but undoubtedly also added fictional color. One scene in the novel in particular that always makes me chuckle is Esther's motivation for wanting to spend her summer writing a novel. She writes: Then I decided I would spend the summer writing a novel. That would fix a lot of people. (1963:126) After this, Esther drafts a first paragraph, Elaine sat on the breezeway in an old yellow nightgown of her mother's waiting for something to happen. It was a sweltering morning in July, and drops of sweat crawled down her back one by one, like slow insects. I leaned back and read what I had written. I...

Day 4 - Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study by Luke Ferretter and The Unraveling Archive: Essays on Sylvia Plath edited by Anita Helle On the fourth day of Plathmaszaa my true love gave to me Books to put Plath's works in context In Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study , Luke Ferretter breathes life back into Plath's prose which largely has been ignored. One may want to buy Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams  too, and, while you are at it, request photocopies of Plath's short stories from the archives (primarily from Smith College, Indiana University and Emory University) to help as you read this book. And, the journey into archive of Plath has never been so fully examined as in The Unraveling Archive: Essays on Sylvia Plath edited by Anita Helle. Though published in 2007, this book has not lost any relevance, and remains among the most important works on Plath to ever see the light of day. In two parts, "The Plath Archive" and "...

Like just about any other year, 2010 for Sylvia Plath was interesting and occasionally controversial. The year saw just one major publication by Plath, and that was the British Library’s Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath CD in April . I was fortunate enough to be asked to write the introduction, which was both a great honor and fun to do. If you have not yet purchased the CD or borrowed it from a library I would highly recommend you do (and not for the intro, mind you, but for the audio tracks). By ordering through the link on the sidebar of this blog you can save 10%. The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath CD wins, hands down, for my favorite cover award of the year. The only book by Plath published this year was by Faber who published a new, hardback edition of Ariel in May , but this was of the originally published Ariel edited by Ted Hughes. Books about Plath were a little skimpy this year too; but those new books that did appear in print are considerably important and extremely valuable co...

Congratulations are in order to Luke Ferretter for the recent publication of his long-awaited Sylvia Plath’s Fiction: A Critical Study (University of Edinburgh Press). Copies are available from Amazon and other sellers. In addition to Heather Clark’s forthcoming The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes in January 2011, we now have An Essential Self: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, a Memoir to look forward to shortly from Five Leaves Publications. Publication in the US and the UK is 7 January 2011 (ISBN: 978-1907869013) ( Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk )

This blog post kind of got away from me. If it's as nasty outside where you live as it is where I live, then maybe that's ok... Val Hennessey at the Daily Mail reviews Lesley McDowell's Between the Sheets in " Clever Girls with Terrible Taste in Men ." I read the book over the winter and found it lacking. Plath didn't belong in with the rest of the women for one reason: she didn't put up with Ted Hughes's infidelity. All the other relationships in the book were sadly portrayed and I kept screaming at the book "Leave the bastard!" These men, whether they or I knew it or not, taught me everything I need to know about relationships. The stories were repetitive and far too similar, and did not do much to make me interested in the lives or the writings of those featured. It was too the point that I dreaded reading the Plath chapter, which is the last chapter. But it read far better than I expected. This disappointment with the book in general ...

Will 2010 bring some great new publications? Here are a few I've found out about so far: There is the eagerly anticipated Sylvia Plath's Fiction by Luke Ferretter , which on Amazon.co.uk is slated for release on 31 July 2010. In May, Faber is releasing a new hardback of Ariel . Look for Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill by Helen Vendler in April. There are bound to be additional publications.

By and large, the biggest - and saddest - news this year was the death of Nicholas Hughes by suicide in March. Plath said it best, "A smile fell in the grass." In January , London was treated to Robert Shaw's production of Plath's "Three Women". The play was on at Edinburgh in August and I'm still hopeful the company can come west to Boston or New York. While the play received mostly positive reviews, from the standpoint of bring Plath's words to a greater audience it was a huge success. Also in January, the website ladylazarus.tv was launched by Florian and Sonja Flur. The website has been updated so please check back to it! The Flur's visited Boston in March and we met up so that I could show them the Plath sites. It was a very memorable day - certainly one of the best of the year - and they were very gracious guests. In April we voted "Three Women" to be our favorite poem in the 2009 Sylvia Plath Poetry tournament. ...

In addition to his forthcoming book Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study , please keep an eye out for these two essays by Luke Ferretter: ‘"The Influence of Somebody Upon Something": To the Lighthouse in Sylvia Plath's Work'. Woolf Editing, Editing Woolf: Selected Papers from the Eighteenth International Conference on Virginia Woolf , ed. Eleanor McNees and Sara Veglahn. (Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press, 2009). ‘"What Girl Ever Flourished in Such Company?": Sylvia Plath's Religion'. Yearbook of English Studies: Religion and Literature , ed. Andrew Tate. (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2009).

Below is an updated list of titles expected to be published this year, as could be found through various sources. Books by Sylvia Plath: In the US: The Bell Jar . Harper Perennial P.S. (3 November 2009) In the UK: The Bell Jar . Faber & Faber 80th Anniversary Edition. (7 May 2009) Selected Poems . Faber & Faber 80th Anniversary Edition. (7 May 2009) Works about Sylvia Plath: The Plath Cabinet by Catherine Bowman. Four Way. (US: 1 April 2009/UK: 15 April 2009) Sylvia Plath by Connie Ann Kirk. Prometheus Books. (US: 21 April 2009/UK: 1 April 2009 Sylvia Plath's Fiction: A Critical Study by Luke Ferretter. University of Edinburgh Press. (US: 15 May 2009/UK: 15 July 2009) Plath Profiles . Volume 2. ( World Wide Web : ca. August 2009) Plath Profiles is still accepting submissions for Volume 2. If you have an essay, book review, or work inspired by Plath, consider Plath Profiles . Click here for submission guidelines and deadlines . Essays, book reviews, and...