On Saturday 13 June 1959, the same day she and Hughes attended the wedding of Margaret Cantor's oldest daughter, Sylvia Plath wrote in her journal, Read COSMOPOLITAN from cover to cover. Two mental health articles. I must write one about a college girl suicide. THE DAY I DIED. And a story, a novel even. Must get out SNAKE PIT. There is an increasing market for mental-hospital stuff. I am a fool if I don't relive it, recreate it" (495). Well, Plath was no fool. Published on 14 January 1963, Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar was the third in an unrelated trilogy of novels set in mental hospitals to appear in print in three years. British author Jennifer Dawson's The Ha-Ha came first, published in early 1961. Then came the American writer Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , published in the United States in February 1962 (and in the United Kingdom in January or February 1963). The connections between these authors and their books is most i...

Listen, my children, or face my wrath Of the midday meal of Sylvia Plath, On the Thirtieth of August, in Forty-five... Sylvia Plath kept a daily diary for several years starting in 1944. I recently worked with her diaries for the first time, delving deeply into them looking for contextual and other reference information to try to improve notes on the letters for that period. On 30 August 1945, Sylvia Plath wrote in her diary about a day spent she and Warren had, from the dentist in Boston and out for lunch in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Plath's dentist was Howard C. Reith, a Winthrop, Massachusetts resident. According to the Boston city directory, his office was located at 370 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston ( map ), which is now the location of the Eliot Hotel at the corner of Commonwealth and Massachusetts Avenues. The trip to Sudbury was made with Ralph Gaebler, his brother Max, and Max's wife Carolyn. Plath commented on Ralph's driving (fast). They at at the fam...

In the past, the year in review has tried to summarize the small world of Sylvia Plath as I live it. I suspect this post will be no different. Rather than go through the blog month by month, I trust that the blog archive in the sidebar will be a sufficient way for many of you to access the posts that appeared in the calendar year 2015. By and large this year was dominated for me in two respects. The first is the Letters of Sylvia Plath project, a book which I am co-editing with Karen V. Kukil of Smith College for Frieda Hughes to be published by Faber. From the beginning of the project which officially was underway in 2013 -- but which I have been working on since circa 2010 -- it has been a privilege to read, transcribe, annotate, index, etc. all of the known letters by Sylvia Plath. I am not at liberty to say too, too much about the letters or the project now but suffice it to say someday I will. Each and every one of the thousands of hours I have spent on this project has been wi...

The following is a post first started between June and December 2012, revisited briefly in June 2014, and then forgotten about as I was working full time on the letters of Sylvia Plath project. I felt it was important to work on the blog some more this fall with the intention of posting it on 5 November, which was the 75th anniversary of the death of Otto Plath. But then other things got in the way... Recently, though, I had a change of heart about the bulk of this post. Much of what I wanted to say I learned years ago but will refrain from posting now as I believe that Heather Clark, in her forthcoming biography of Sylvia Plath, will discuss at beautiful and thorough length the history and biography of Otto Plath. However, what I do still want to relate is interesting information I obtained Warren's Plath's daughter Susan in June 2014 concerning something Paul Alexander wrote as fact in his biography of Sylvia Plath, Rough Magic . Alexander writes, "On April 13, 188...

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer was available through a database but I did not find an article there. Two other papers, the Cleveland News and the Cleveland Press were available on microfilm only so I spent an hour or so looking through the papers this way. Happily! I found one article in each paper, which adds to the list of articles on Plath's first suicide attempt/disappearance. "Smith College Student Missing." Cleveland News . August 26, 1953: 1. "Hunt Top Student." Cleveland Press . August 26, 1953: 12. These two articles bring the total up to 198 articles found. Before Cleveland, in Cincinnati which is a city with even less to do (especially during the rain delay of the Chicago Cubs versus the Cincinnati Reds baseball game), it did not occur to me to look through their microfilm in their public library (which has a beautiful book sculpture on Vine Street). We were so bored one day by 8 a.m. that I asked my wife if we could pop over to the Lilly Libra...

Poet and writer David Trinidad has a new essay on Sylvia Plath: "'Viciousness in the Kitchen': The Backstory of Sylvia Plath's 'Lesbos'" published today on Blackbird out of Virginia Commonwealth University. For various reasons, the piece had to be published without the images that David intended. So as a complement to the piece, I have agreed to publish the photographs here on the Sylvia Plath Info Blog. Sylvia Plath and her children at Court Green, spring 1962 Marvin Kane, circa 1961 Cadbury House, 2010. ©Derek Harper "Lesbos" beach: "the most heavenly gold sands by emerald sea." Beyond the stone arch, the only cottage in Hicks Court with "a sort of cement well." Could this be "Quaintways"? 2010, ©Gail Crowther Lane to "Lesbos" beach, 2010, ©Gail Crowther "Lesbos" beach, 2010, ©Gail Crowther "Lesbos" beach, 2010, ©Gail Crowther Memo...

As reported on 10 October 2015 in this blog post , there were two Sylvia Plath lots at the Fine Books, Maps and Manuscripts auction via Bonhams Knightsbridge auction today in London. The two Sylvia Plath lots just finished. Lot 120 featured an autograph manuscript of Plath's early short story "The Mummy's Tomb". Lot 121 featured annotated typescripts of five poems written when Plath was a student in high school and at Smith College: "acquatic nocturne", "Terminal", "Van Winkle's Village", "The Dark River (P.N.)", and "The Invalid". Lot 120 sold for £5,000 ($7,559)  also blowing passed the high estimate. Price includes buyers premium. Lot 121 sold for £13,750 ($20,789) annihilating the high estimate. Price includes buyers premium. Go Plath. That was intense and interesting bidding to watch online! All links accessed 10 November 2015.