In addition to a typescript copy of Sylvia Plath's Circus in Three Rings that she compiled in Spring 1955 as she was preparing to graduate from Smith College, the Lilly Library of Indiana University, Bloomington, has a typescript copy of Plath's The Colossus and other poems in Box 8, Folder 8, that she submitted, like other collections, to the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Plath considered marketing a book to the Yale Series of Younger Poets starting in 1955, around the time she assembled her Circus in Three Rings . Also, she intended to send something to them in June 1956. Whether these first two happened or not I am not sure. Plath did submit Two Lovers and a Beachcomber on 16 February 1957 (rejected 8 August 1957) and The Bull of Bendylaw and other Poems circa late February or early March 1959 (rejected 6 June 1959). If she missed 1958 who can really be surprised because of her teaching workload. Plath appears to have submitted the Colossus manuscript to the Yale S...

Western Massachusetts bookseller, Ken Lopez, is selling a major collection of Sylvia Plath materials. The Harriet Rosenstein Sylvia Plath Archive is listed on his website with a sale price of $875,000. A hefty sum for, frankly, a hefty amount of important Plath and Plath-related documents. The news has me feeling like a kind outside of candy store. I can see inside, but cannot get it. The highlight of the collections are the letters and other papers that originated with Plath's "psychiatrist" Dr Ruth Beuscher Barnhouse. Included here are 14 letters from Plath to Beuscher (as was her then surname), from 18 February 1960 to 4 February 1963. Lopez estimates the 45 pages of letters consists of "about 18,000 words". In addition to the letters, there are files related to Plath's treatment at McLean Hospital from 1953-1954. Normally off-limits, these documents may reveal quite a bit about Plath's decision to attempt suicide in 1953, as well as perhaps di...

One of the most fascinating aspects of studying Sylvia Plath's poems, particularly the late poems, is considering them through the lens of their creation date. That is one way to read them, and in doing so you can sometimes see her using words and images in a consistent fashion, but also seeing how she progresses through her subjects. For example, if you read the October 1962 poems in chronological order you can see Plath reshaping her self, if you will, in her "Bee" poems written from 3 to 9 October. After reestablishing that self (a poetic selfie?), she turns to shed external, familial subjects (burdens) like her father and mother "Daddy" and "Medusa" respectively, written back-to-back as it were on 12 and 16 October. (Plath had spent the weekend after writing "Daddy" out of town in Cornwall.) But yet the poems read quite differently when done so in the published book format. Though written second, "Medusa" appears first in Ariel:...

At the time of Sylvia Plath's death on 11 February 1963, a vast amount of her papers --the majority perhaps-- were in her mother's house at 26 Elmwood Road in Wellesley. These papers now form Plath mss II at the Lilly Library, Indiana University at Bloomington . Aurelia Plath would later gave nearly 250 items to Smith College in December 1983. Have you ever worked with Plath's early poems at the Lilly Library (or at Smith or Emory, where there can be found also some copies)? The poems are in Box 7 (poems A-M) and Box 8 (poems N-Z). Additionally, many of Plath's early poems have recently appeared at auction and if you have taken the time to view the images online, you may have noticed small penciled-in numbers in the top right corner. Here are two examples from recent auctions: From Sotheby's December 2014 auction: Numbered 3b From Bonhams' March 2016 auction: Numbered 21/2 Tucked away in the back of Plath mss II, Box 15, Publications Scrapbook, are ...

Recently, Gail Crowther ( website ; twitter ) and I submitted our final edits to the publisher Fonthill for our forthcoming book of essays These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath . Currently, we are reviewing page proofs. The timetable for the rest of the pre-publication process is unknown. But progress is being made which is wonderful! We were excited to learn, also, that listings for the book are now Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com . And, it gives us great pleasure here to post here the cover for our book: The Amazon's seem to say that  TGA  will be published on 11 May 2017. However, the following press release indicates that the book will be published on 25 May 2017. Not sure at this point in time which is correct. All that does matter is that the book is coming out and that you are going to have your socks knocked off by the essays. Writing this book was such a joy. From the start to (nearly at the) finish, I cannot express how thrilling each essa...

A six-page typescript story, "Gramercy Park" (1948), with holograph corrections in Sylvia Plath's hand  is up for auction via RR Auctions . "Gramercy Park" originally sold in the  1982 Sotheby's auction , then reappeared in their  failed December 2014 auction . It did  sell last June via Bonhams  as part of a two-story lot along with 1949's "The Green Rock". Indiana University at Bloomington holds, in Plath mss II, two typescript copies of "Gramercy Park". One of them has, on the back of a cover page, a small reproduction of George Wesley Bellow's 1920 painting Gramercy Park , pictured below. The copy at auction appears to be the draft Plath edited to reach the final version as the edits are reflected in one of the copies at Lilly. It also features some comments in another hand, likely one of her teachers at the Bradford High School. My thanks to Jett W. Whitehead of Jett W Whitehead Rare Books , THE specialist in p...

As a result of Alison Flood's article "Sylvia Plath's Three Women to be staged in London" in The Guardian , I met Elizabeth Sigmund, who passed away peacefully at her home in Cornwall on Friday, 6 January 2017. Shortly after the article ran my mobile phone rang with an English phone number showing up on the caller-ID. It was Elizabeth, calling to discuss my quotes in the piece and to discuss Plath. We became fast friends. Elizabeth was like that -- instantly likable. We spoke on the phone periodically after that -- it was always a fulfilling thrill to speak to her: especially in July when I'd call her on her birthday and sing to her, and the next day she'd call me on mine and sing back to me. She possessed a beautiful and inviting speaking voice, a vibrant and contagious laugh, and had the amazing ability to make any day we spoke both brighter and happier. In March 2013, when Gail Crowther and I gave a preview talk for our paper "These Ghostly Arc...