A six-page handwritten letter that Sylvia Plath wrote to Katherine Benion on 3 March 1951 appeared at auction today at Bonhams, New York. Lot number 212 was estimated to sell for $7,000-$10,000 dollars, which averages to a minimum of $1,166.6666666667 per page! The lot sold for $10,000 which includes the buyers premium. Hammer price was $8,000. Images from Bonhams From the catalog description: Autograph Letter Signed ("Sylvia Plath"), to Miss Katherine Benion, concerning how she got started in writing, 6 pp (on 2 pairs of conjoining leaves), 8vo, [Northampton, MA], March 3, 1951, in ink on blue-bordered patterned stationery, folded, light handling smudges. Provenance: Family of the recipient, by descent. A remarkable early Plath letter discussing her budding career as a writer, written when she was just 18 years old and attending Smith College. "... that's the total of my 'published' record — two poems, a story, an article and a story to app...

One cannot deny that reading Sylvia Plath's works fills each of us with immense pleasure. It is also a thought-provoking activity which often leads to writing about Plath. Many of us have done it and will continue to do it. Articles about Plath show how she was viewed at the time of their publication as well as reflect the education and (potential) biases of the writer. They are a rich history of perspectives and form the foundation upon which our current interpretation(s) and understanding(s) of Plath's works and life are built. And they potentially forecast how Plath scholarship will develop in the future, too. Or, at least, in some instances, show us how far we have come. I have been at work for about fifteen years or so on an updated bibliography of articles about Sylvia Plath that is built from Stephen Tabor's Sylvia Plath: An Analytical Bibliography (1987). Additional bibliographies by Meyering (1990), Lane and Stevens (1978), and Northouse and Walsh (1974) are oth...

A recent listing on HarperCollins website (and Amazon.com) confirms that they will publish Sylvia Plath's short story  Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom , first written in December 1952 and revised in January 1953, under the Harper Perennial imprint. HarperCollins is offering a  paperback  (ISBN: 978-0062940834) on sale on 15 January) and  hardback  (ISBN: 978-0062940858) on 5 February. Visit  HarperCollins' Sylvia Plath page  for books and deals. In addition to paperback and hardback, it appears the HarperCollins edition of the book will be published in Kindle, too: 1)  Kindle for $6.99 on 15 January ; 2) Paperback for $9.99 on 15 January  (Amazon); and 3) Hardback for $15.99 on 5 February  (Amazon). Faber paperback cover Faber, in England, will publish a paperback edition for £3.50 on 3 January 2019 (ISBN: 978-0571351732). News of the story's publication was first made in The Guardian . It is the first new Plath ...

Sylvia Plath archives are rather dispersed and so it can make locating documents tricky. So, in an effort to aid in locating typescripts and manuscripts of Plath's creative works, I have collated a spreadsheet called the Sylvia Plath Archival Documents Hub . There are four worksheets: Poetry, Prose, Correspondence, and Photographs. In the first two, Poetry and Prose, I am tracking only the manuscripts and typescripts. The largest worksheet consists of correspondence. This was developed as part of my tracking spreadsheet of Plath's letters for The Letters of Sylvia Plath project but I've included letters she received that survive, as well as letters that may relate to her in some fashion. There is a clear division at 11 February 1963 to indicate to you this is after Plath's life. It is not by any means complete in the latter category (post-11 February 1963). Now that Letters project is over, I felt the information was worth sharing. The fourth worksheet compil...

Novelist and biographer Andrew Wilson reports, in the 24-30 November 2018 Radio Times, that The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963 has been selected, like it's predecessor Volume 1 , as Radio 4's Book of the Week. Gen up on Sylvia Plath in today’s Radio Times c/o ⁦ @andrewwilson ready for next week’s @bbcr4 Book of the Week pic.twitter.com/w5CVAA2xdo — Fiona Hughes (@FionaNHughes) November 20, 2018 The letters, which many of you have now read, will be serialized on Radio 4 twice a day next week from Monday to Friday at 9:45 am and 12:30 pm. This is a thrill and honor, and is wonderful exposure both for Plath and for the book. All links accessed: 20 November 2018.

What a weekend in Boston! It was the annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fiar and as usual I browsed through booksellers stock looking specifically for Sylvia Plath books. But this fair had particular targets in view... I was particularly keen to see some of the volumes for sale that were part of the big Sylvia Plath/Ted Hughes auction at Bonhams of the property of Frieda Hughes . As such, I spent some time at a few booths. Apologies in advance for all the super dodgy cell phone photographs. But before I get to those, the primary reason for my attendance this year was to promote, sell, and sign (if wanted) some copies of both volumes of The Letters of Sylvia Plath . I was in Jett Whitehead's book for a good few hours promoting this book, talking to Jett and to many customers that stopped by. To my happiness some books sold and even some of the book dealers were buying copies. Sometimes it is hard to really consider just how many people are interested in these books...

This blog post was modified, to add links, on 12 December 2018.--pks The immediacy of Twitter has often inadvertently led to the absence of some information on Sylvia Plath appearing on this blog. For example, the reviews of the  Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2  have been tweeted and recorded on my bibliography of reviews of Plath's work on my website , but not here. So I thought I might do a little blog post to post the reviews and include links to however many that I can which appear online. Linking to reviews is presently a feature on my website that I do not take the time to do. Perhaps I should? Probably not, I still fear the breaking of links as it what so often happened earlier in this century. Here are the reviews, including some pieces which are more coverage of the book, of  Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2  that have been published to date (or will be shortly--Rollyson and Schoerke). Some are behind paywalls and one just is not online. Some wer...