Last December, a fellow Sylvia Plath reader Peter Fydler asked me a question about Sylvia Plath's English tripos book "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber" submitted as part of her Fulbright fulfillment at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, in May-June 1957. Specifically the contents list of the volume. I did not know the answer. Turns out we took a convoluted route in trying to piece it together. First looking at the Cambridge Review from 7 February 1969, which focused on the recent find of the manuscript of the book in the English faculty library at Cambridge and featured both some essays on Plath and printed several poems by her that were included in the manuscripts. The manuscript contained 43 poems. Though initially Plath envisioned it being slightly larger. On 21 November 1956, Plath wrote to her mother, "My own book of poems (now titled "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber") grows well, and I should have 50 good poems by the time I submit it to the Yale...

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath in Benidorm: A Study Week a residential course with Terry Gifford and Lorraine Kerslake At Almàssera Vella: October 3rd – 10th 2015 "Spain Where I felt at home. The blood-raw light, The oiled anchovy faces, the African Black edges to everything." --Ted Hughes "...but I am, in my deep soul, happiest on the moors – my deepest soul-scape, in the hills by the Spanish Mediterranean." --Sylvia Plath A RESIDENTIAL STUDY WEEK. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes wrote some 35,000 words about their experiences in Benidorm whilst on honeymoon there in 1956. During this week we will be visiting the house they shared in 1956 and the quay at Alicante where Ted Hughes described his new wife as: "… in moonlight, / Walking the empty wharf at Alicante / Like a soul waiting for the ferry," We will be discussing aspects of their work, including poetry, prose essays, fiction and letters. The course is designed to suit interested readers o...

The following is a guest blog post by the bright, talented, young Sylvia Plath scholar Amanda Ferrara, who has been fortunate enough to attend both Smith College and Indiana University and work closely with the two richest Sylvia Plath archives in the world. My path to becoming a Plath scholar has been one of twists and turns. I've been lucky to work with Sylvia Plath's materials in both proprietary repositories, Smith College's Mortimer Rare Book Room and Indiana University's Lilly Library. A native of Western Massachusetts, I aspired to being a "Smithie" from a young age, frequently heading to Northampton with friends as a reprieve from our less exciting towns in the Valley. I was accepted to, and began attending, the all women's college in 2009, and quickly picked up on the legacy of famous graduates discussed by other students. I already knew of Julia Child, but of the other popular alumnae, it took some time for me to learn their stories. Sylvia Pla...

By mid-October 1961, Sylvia Plath was already thinking about Christmas as she and Ted Hughes were hard at work making Court Green in North Tawton not just their own, but also livable. She mentioned in letter dated 13 October that year of her desire to make her daughter Frieda Hughes a doll's wood cradle. Christmas likely sprung into her mind as she had recently received a from her mother mentioning that she would be sending her granddaughter a doll for Christmas. The subject of the cradle was mentioned in general in subsequent letters to Aurelia and Warren Plath on 18 December 1961 and to her Aunt Dorothy Benotti on 31 January 1962. In " These Ghostly Archives 4: Looking for New England ", Plath scholar Gail Crowther discusses this very doll's cradle (see pages 44-47; an image of the cradle appears on page 45). Working with the documents Plath and Hughes created is one thing: particularly those which bear evidence of both the poets such as poetry or fiction manuscri...

Emory University recently put a finding aid online for the Sylvia Plath collection, 1952-1989 . A small collection, but one certainly with significant materials for the Plath scholar. The items were purchased in 2014 and include: Folder 1: Compass , Southeastern Massachusetts University, Summer 1987 Folder 2: Mademoiselle , January 1959 Folder 3: The New Yorker , August 3, 1963 [2 copies, one annotated by Aurelia Plath] Folder 4: Smith Review , Fall 1952 Folder 5: Smith Review , Spring 1953 [annotated by Aurelia Plath] Folder 6: Thomas, Trevor, Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters , 1989 [inscribed from the author to Richard Larschan and includes a letter from Thomas to Larschan and several clippings about the work] The material in folder 1, Compass is the the magazine of Southern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), and features an article by Maeve Hickock titled "Aurelia Plath and Richard Larschan". The article is about the video produ...

The following is a transcription of the public statement offered by Peter K. Steinberg of the Sylvia Plath Info Blog, which aired on Seattle's WC 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 (the Starbucks Network) this morning at 4:01 A.M . local time. For the last eight years, Sylvia Plath Info Blog has been providing posts on Sylvia Plath covering a range of topics including archival materials, to newsworthy events, books and book reviews, and quasi-live blogging from conferences. Unfortunately, much the content and information presented has been done so under the influence of performance enhancing drugs. Admitting this at this point in time (I was going to hand write it in the attempt to have it come off as more sincere) is a big step for me in conquering the problem. Continually I had intended to try to break free of the grip these drugs have had on me. But to no avail. I want to apologize deeply and sincerely if I have let any of you down as a result of this admission. Kindness--in the form of co...

The Lilly Library From 16-19 March, I was at the Lilly Library, Indiana University at Bloomington, working with the Sylvia Plath archives there doing reference leg work and inquiry for the Letters of Sylvia Plath project. In the past, I have made nightly updates on the materials with which I worked, but I found this too time consuming for the kind of work I was doing this time around. In the process of being there, I was able to look through the majority of all the boxes and folders in Plath mss II; as well as dabbling a little in other, smaller collections  such as the Lameyer mss; Plath mss IV; Plath mss VI; and one book from her library, Christopher Fry's 1950 play The Lady's Not for Burning . The trip was very successful and rewarding, and the staff, from the Curator of Manuscripts Cherry Williams to Reference Librarian David K. Frasier and Public Services Assistant Zach Downey, and all the additional library staff who paged materials, brought them to me, took them aw...