Sylvia Plath Collections: The BBC Written Archives Center

The BBC Written Archives Center holds correspondence and other business related materials between Sylvia Plath and some members of the BBC. In a post I made on 25 June 2007, I said that the University of Reading held these, but that appears to have been an error.

Unfortunately, they do not make photocopies of materials of non-BBC copyright, unpublished material without the written permission of the copyright holder or their estate. And the Plath Estate will not allow photocopies of unpublished Plath materials as they anticipate future publications.

The letters range in date from 1957 to the mid-1960s. However, after 8 February 1963, the date of Plath's final letter to a member of the BBC, one must look at their Ted Hughes files. The letters and other materials deal with trying to get work for the BBC and setting up recording sessions, fee forms for payment for poems broadcast and copyright issues, and establishing the criteria for what became "Ocean 1212-W", amongst other things.

The BBC Written Archives Center is located at:
Peppard Road
Caversham Park
Reading RG4 8TZ
UK

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/contacts/wac.shtml

Of course, you can read more about Plath and her relationship with the BBC in "These Ghostly Archives", an article written by Gail Crowther and myself in Plath Profiles 2.

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