Sylvia Plath Collections: Washington University, St. Louis

The John M. Olin Library at the University of Washington in St. Louis, Missouri, has a couple different Plath collections. They have a Hughes Collections as well as the papers of Lee Anderson. Lee Anderson met Plath and Hughes around 1958, and recorded both poets reading their poems during their time in Northampton and Boston.

The Lee Anderson Papers (finding aid here) contains the following:

Plath's autograph in an autograph book and this quote, "Yet, shrined on her shelf, the grisly visage endured", from her poem "The Lady and the Earthenware Head" dated 15 April, 1958, and two letters, dated 27 April, 1958 and 18 February, 1959. The Lee Anderson Papers also includes a number of typescripts of Plath's poems. These are:

November graveyard [poem]. Ts, with corrections, 1p., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

Spinster [poem]. Ts [carbon], 1p., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

On the plethora of dryads [poem]. Ts, 2pp., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

On the difficulty of conjuring up a dryad [poem]. Ts, 2pp., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

Battle-scene from the comic operatic fantasy "The Seafarer "[poem]. Ts, 1p., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

Sow [poem]. Ts, 2pp., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

All the dead dears [poem]. Ts, 1p., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

The earthenware head [poem]. Ts [carbon], 1p., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

On the decline of oracles [poem]. Ts [carbon], 2pp., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

Departure of the ghost [poem]. Ts [carbon], 1p., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

The disquieting muse [poem]. Ts [carbon], 2pp., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

Poem for Paul Klee's [poem]. Ts [carbon], 1pp., [1958]. (27 April 1958).

The Hughes Collections (finding aid online here) contains five letters from Plath and Ted Hughes to Olwyn Hughes and Graham Ackroyd, an artist. Other Hughes/Ackroyd correspodence is held at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Below is a description of the letters from the finding aid.

Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes n.d.: June 30 (Monday). 1 item (1p.): ALS
Autograph letter signed, from Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes, describing their recent activities at Smith, and discussing their hopes and plans for writing in the next few years.

Ted Hughes to Graham Ackroyd n.d. 1 item (1 p.): ALS
Autograph letter signed, from Ted Hughes to Graham Ackroyd, inviting him to visit them in London when he is there.

Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes n.d. 1 item (1 p.): ALS
Autograph letter signed, from Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes, describing their moving-in activities; ms. note from Ted Hughes appended to letter from Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes.

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes to Olwyn Hughes n.d. 1 item (1 p.): ACS
Autograph card signed, from Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes to Olwyn Hughes, describing winter in Boston.

Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes n.d. 1 item (1 p.): ALS
Autograph letter signed, from Sylvia Plath to Olwyn Hughes, discussing her current work and commenting on their life in America.

The special collections library web site is here.

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de

Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove

Sylvia Plath and McLean Hospital

In August when I was in the final preparations for the tour of Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar sites, I found that I had long been mistaken about a couple of things. This is my coming clean. It was my intention in this blog post to discuss just McLean, but I found myself deeply immersed in other aspects of Plath's recovery. The other thing I was mistaken about will be discussed in a separate blog post. I suppose I need to state from the outset that I am drawing conclusions from Plath's actual experiences from what she wrote in The Bell Jar and vice versa, taking information from the novel that is presently unconfirmed or murky and applying it to Plath's biography. There is enough in The Bell Jar , I think, based on real life to make these decisions. At the same time, I like to think that I know enough to distinguish where things are authentic and where details were clearly made up, slightly fudged, or out of chronological order. McLean Hospital was Plath's third and last

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