When Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and I began investigating the fate of Ted Hughes' trunk at Emory and prepared the previous blog post , we thought it would be interesting to ask for and assemble some responses from people recently or currently involved with the study of the writing and/or the life of either Sylvia Plath and/or Ted Hughes. The following are their responses, presented here in alphabetical order by surname: Jonathan Bate, Gail Crowther, Terry Gifford, Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick, Carl Rollyson, Peter K. Steinberg, and David Trinidad. Ted Hughes' trunk, courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory This account concurs with what I was told about the "sealed trunk" when researching the life of Ted Hughes. I had conversations about the matter with the late Roy Davids, who made the sale, with Steve Enniss, who made the purchase, and with Carol Hughes, before she distanced herself from my book. My understanding at the time wa...

Ted Hughes' Trunk at Emory by Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and Peter K. Steinberg Ted Hughes' trunk, courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory Since Ted Hughes sold a selection of his papers to Emory University in 1997, a kind of lore has built up around the contents of the mysterious sealed trunk (sometimes called a "chest"). Perhaps it has grown, in our collective minds, from being a modest-sized object to something as large as a semi-trailer, hauled on an 18-wheeler, for all the documents we want it to contain. (There is a precedent set for such dreams: Hughes's manuscripts, letters, and notebooks arrived at Emory in 86 boxes and weighed more than 2 tons.) For scholars, this interest is natural. Access to an author's papers is a privilege; and being denied access to materials---for any reason--- understandably raises questions and sparks wonder, often fantastic in nature. A small controversy was raised about this ...

Due to a busy November I missed posting on the outcome of the Bonhams auction of a Sylvia Plath typescript on 15 November 2017 . And with the recent news about Frieda Hughes putting to auction some of the items she inherited from her parents, it seems like a rather timely time to mention this auction result now. Fresh back from Belfast and London and filled with memories that are insatiably fine, it slipped my mind that I had typically posted on the results. The result of the auction was that the item, an unpublished short story called "The Dark River", sold for the minimum bid , which after premiums and everything came out to £750 (about US $1,001 at the time of writing). Part of the oversight also stems from the fact that the winner of the auction notified me a couple of days afterwards to inform me that she was giving the typescript to me as a gift. Since that time I have been rather befuddled, occasionally weepy with happy disbelief, and completely staggered at her kin...

Maev Kennedy wrote in today's print edition of The Guardian  about the forthcoming Bonhams auction:  "Writers' Lives: Auction offers intimate glimpses inside the marriage of Plath and Hughes" (pg 7). The article, though, posted online yesterday . It's safe to say in the Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes realm, the news went viral. Frieda Hughes is set to auction about 108 lots of items from the estates of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and Olwyn Hughes that she inherited. The range of items is breathtaking for peanut-crunchers and collectors, archivists, and librarians. Clothing, jewelry, personal library books, typescripts, and realia such as furniture. The items reflect the lives of, at a minimum, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Frieda Hughes, Nicholas Hughes, Olwyn Hughes, William Hughes, Edith Hughes, Otto Plath, and Aurelia Plath. When I learned about the auction in December it was really hard to obey the request for confidentiality. But, I did it! When I saw the early...

Not truly a Sylvia Plath Collection, but.... Recently I visited the Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University which is really close to my work. The reason I went there was that they have the papers of Susan Fromberg Schaeffer who knew Ted Hughes, Olwyn Hughes, as well as to a lesser degree Frieda and Nicholas Hughes and Carol Hughes. In 2006, Schaeffer (1941-2011, obituary ) published a novel called Poison which is about the most apt name possible for this labored, lumbering 608 page thing. It is a trial to read it, but it is of interest as the novel is loosely based off of the story of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, as well as the death of Ted Hughes and the 2002 legal battle over Hughes' will. The story is of Evelyn Graves (Plath) and Peter Grosvenor (Hughes), of Elfie (Assia Wevill), Sigrid (Olwyn), Sophie (Frieda), Andrew (Nicholas), Meena (Carol), Penelope (Dido Merwin), Julia (Susan Fromberg Schaeffer), Rose (probably Elaine Feinstein), and Clare (the woma...

Yesterday was one of those Janus January days. Cloudy, windy, unseasonable warm and rainy in the morning, but by noon, the temperatures plummeted, the clouds pushed off and rain water froze seemingly instantly. I had to go to Logan Airport, and so I felt it would be a good day to use the new Ricoh Theta camera I got last month from Brandi. And O!, was I glad I went. That blue sky is amazing... right out of "The Colossus": "A blue sky out of the Oresteia / Arches above us" ( The Colossus , 1960, p. 20). Or, this recalls Plath's own visit to her father's grave from March 1959, written in her journals: "A clear blue day in Winthrop. Went to my father's grave, a very depressing sight" ( The Journals of Sylvia Plath , 2000, p. 473). Plath mined this experience for use in The Bell Jar , published on this day 55 years ago in London. But she changed the scene from that which she recorded in her journals. Here are the links to the Theta images: Th...

Over the Christmas holiday I visited my family which is always really nice and they wanted to see the One Life: Sylvia Plath exhibit  which is still on (through May 2018) at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. I had donated a piece, so they wanted to see that, but also to see a little bit about Plath herself, too. They enjoyed the exhibit, and I think walked away with a greater appreciate for the poet, the artist, and the person (Plath, not me!). When we were discussing this visit I knew I had to bring Brandi Rund's gift to me of that Ricoh Theta 360 camera and so I'm happy to share here the seven images I took: 1.  |  2.  |  3.  |  4.  |  5.  |  6.  |  7. Sorry that I am in so many of them; it is fortunate the camera did not break. While in the exhibit, I also tried doing a live Tweet via Periscope , something I had never before done. The quality is wanting of course and the camera itself is a bit ...