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l i k e f u r y. . .
The Life, Love & Art of Sylvia Plath
J ONK ER S RAR E B OOK S
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Orders can be taken at,
Jonkers Rare Books 27 Hart Street Henley on Thames RG9 2AR
01491 576427 (within the UK) +44 1491 576427 (from overseas)
tom@jonkers.co.uk www.jonkers.co.uk
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l i k e f u r y. . .
The Life, Love & Art of Sylvia Plath
J ONK ER S RAR E B OOK S M M X X I
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i n t r o d u c t i o n
The letters Sylvia Plath wrote to Ted Hughes are the greatest literary love letters that have been offered for sale since Robert and Elizabeth Browning’s in 1913.
Like those of the Brownings, Plath’s letters to Hughes cover a relatively short period of time, contained to just the October of 1956, and represent their only extended separa- tion from each other during their relationship. They had planned to live apart for the entire academic year but, as the letters show, the pain of detachment so early in their married life reached a pitch that was too high to bear, and late on the night of October 23 rd Ted travelled to Cambridge to be with Sylvia. The significance of the letters is impossible to exaggerate. Nevertheless, it may be stat - ed that the letters mark, in turn, their first separation since their marriage, the conse - cration of a new poetic and prose style, and the genesis of the publication of The Hawk In The Rain . These events and their record, covering scarcely more than three weeks of their lives, provide the backdrop for an unfettered insight into the minds of two of the century’s most talented and important writers. The whole scope of Plath’s life is covered, from mundane college social events and pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper on Augustine, to heightened creativity and viv - id literary criticism. The letters are written with a passionate honesty, baring herself and her emotions to Hughes unfiltered. One letter still holds her tear stains. Leading poets are derided, her dreams are revealed and all the while there is Plath’s confessed inability to live apart from Hughes. And while the letters can veer into sentimentality, Plath’s thoughts are expressed poetically and don’t succumb to the cliché that charac- terises much contemporary discussion of her life and her work. The letters are just some of the exceptional items we have bought in the last few years from the Hughes family. The other material, including inscribed books and photo- graphs, is offered in the second part of the catalogue.
Tom Ayling Henley on Thames, September 2021
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“I am all for you, and you are that world in which I walk.”
1. “Monday night about eight-thirty...” [1 October 1956]. The first letter Sylvia Plath ever wrote to Ted Hughes, describing her return to Cam - bridge after their marriage, and sharing the news that her poems had been accepted by Poetry. Six typed sides of Cunard Line letter paper (three sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,250 words), signed “Sylvia”. Plath opens to tell “dearest Teddy” that she had safely returned to Cambridge. She re- calls that “the trip back was hell”, but that she had returned to good news, “something wonderful and incredible has happened; I restrained myself and didn’t phone you; I restrained myself and put it in the second paragraph”. Indeed, before revealing her good news, Plath talks him through her return to Newnham; a rejection from the New Yorker, tiresome college-mates new and old, and reading to catch up on, “Brushed through the fifteen odd New Yorkers which had stacked up... They’ll be begging for us yet.” Having shown sufficient restraint, Plath then shares her announcement, “AND NOW FOR THE GREAT NEWS: sit down, take a long sip of beer and bless Henry Rago. POETRY has accepted SIX of my poems!!!!!!!!!! Like we dreamed of.” She relays Henry Rago’s reply to her, and runs through the list of poems accepted and rejected. The following page and a half is an extraordinary passage of writing capturing all her emotions - her love for Ted, the overwhelming excitement of the acceptance, and the pain of not being able to share her joy with him; “You, if only you were here. I don’t know how I can keep still without exploding; I want to share everything with you --- rain, rejections, wine, money, acceptances, reading. God... But I am all for you, and you are that world in which I walk.” Plath then turns to Ted’s possessions that are still in her room at Newnham, connecting her to him, “amaze of amaze, your huge colossal leather coat is here... Your poems are here... Shall type all over many times.” She closes the letter by asking Ted to thank his parents for having them stay over the summer, and talks longingly of life in Yorkshire, “how I miss the coal fires, the sherry and stories... and all the moors and valleys I tramped through.” She signs off the letter, “I dont think I want to eat until I taste your lovely mouth again my very very enormous dear teddy how I love you... / your own wife, Sylvia, with her love”. An extraordinary love letter, being the first letter Sylvia Plath ever wrote to Ted Hughes, and
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marking their first separation since their marriage. They had met earlier in the year, on 25th February, at a party to celebrate the inaugural issue of Saint Botolph’s Review, a Cambridge poetry journal edited by David Ross, to which Hughes was a co-founder and principal contributor. Four months later they were married, and they spent the summer in Spain, France and Yorkshire. Come autumn, Plath had to return to her final year at Cambridge, while Hughes remained in Heptonstall, for they feared her Fulbright scholarship may be jeopardised by their marriage. They had written for much of the summer, and Plath returned to Cambridge with a renewed enthusiasm to secure places in American magazines for their poems and stories. Her excitement at receiving an acceptance letter from Henry Rago, Poetry ’s editor, was the culmination of the newly married Hugheses summer of writing together. The six accepted poems (Two Sisters Of Persephone, Metamorphosis, Wreath For A Bridal, Strumpet Song, Dream With Clam-Dig - gers, and Epitaph For Fire And Flower) appeared in issue 89 of Poetry , January 1957. The profound intensity of Plath’s longing for her new husband, even after only a day apart, is clear in her extraordinary stream of consciousness passage in the middle of the letter where all her thoughts, about stale food, vinegary wine, or tiresome college-mates all come back to Ted. The pain that is the companion of the longing is clear, and is something that swells over the following weeks and in their subsequent correspondence. An exceptional encapsulation of Plath’s early and intense love for Hughes, bound up with news of an important milestone in her poetic career. PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-) Price: £50,000
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“I love you like fury... your own sylvia”
2. “saturday morning, oct. 6” [6 October 1956]. An exceptional, long letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes showing in great detail their collaborative creative processes, and predicting their shared future as great poets. With a typed, signed poem ‘Street Song’ sent to Hughes for his criticism. Eight typed sides of blue letter paper (four sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,900 words), the letter signed “your own sylvia”, and the poem signed “love, s.”. Plath opens with news of a letter from The Atlantic’s Peter Davison, to whom she had written a week before to introduce Ted’s work to him and ask for advice about literary affairs. She asks Ted to not “get too optimistic (I say this, for it’s hard for me not to, and one of us must keep that icy head if all things we handle are fire-and-icily)”. Nev - ertheless, “peter’s letter was like a plum-cake of helps, hints and interest for both of us,” and they were interested in both Ted’s poems and his children’s fables. Therefore Plath resolves to “take out two whole days and type your fables and then Off to Mr. Davison.” Davison also enclosed some advice about copyright laws and the Atlantic’s novel competition; “Peter, my darling Teddy, is that rare rare good editor type person who is utterly unselfish... It would be so nice, all of us being so young, if he could help us, and we, in turn, could give him a reputation”. She then writes on her workload, the study of Chaucer and St Augustine, and the need to “keep a hard head, not panicking at the seemingly endless stacks of reading”. She also suggests that her first collection of poems be titled Firesong, and would have an epigraph by Yeats. The remaining three pages are mainly taken up with Plath editing and commenting on Ted’s work, revealing in full their creative process. Responding to a poem earlier sent by Ted, she writes “I love your poem on the change- ling. But please leave off at: ‘Fondly I smile/Into your hideous eyes.’ Have I your permission? If so, I’ll type it up. It’s too good a poem-as-poem to get slick and com- mercial-ironic.” She also comments on a plot Hughes sent her in a previous letter (”Your new plot is eminently worthy of True Confessions”), and on his continuing efforts at a TV play (”nothing you write should Ever Be Torn Up or Mangled. Save it, bring it to London for me to read”). Plath provides in depth notes on ‘Horses Of The Sun’ across the next three paragraphs, showing how collaborative their work on Ted’s poems was, “Send it back, revised, and I’ll type out final copy. To go through piece by piece: again, I don’t think ‘horrible
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void’ is the best you can do; I’m eternally suspicious of editorializing with horribles, terribles, awfuls, and hideouses; make the void horrible; let your reader have the sweet joy of exclaiming: ‘ah! horrible!’”. Perhaps Plath’s most insightful note is on complexity, “you must, wicked one, help the reader (probably I will be your most niggling demanding one) to read, because you know, your syntax is very difficult; as you admit yourself, your poems are damn hard to read, they are so complex, and so you must be careful to the death not to let any mere mechanical complexity ---punctuation, grammar--- obstruct.” Nevertheless, Plath is just as observant on what she admires in his work, such as his “athletic inwoven metaphor which makes description both realistic, psychologically valid and musical”. Plath then introduces the poem she has enclosed on the final page, Street Song, and invites Ted’s criticism, “I am enclosing my sentimental one; be strict in criticizing, for you are my proper lens; even if you know I am blithering on about how I love you, it is a poem, and, as such, can be attacked brutally.” She signs off by begging Ted to come to London the next weekend, “I can work amaz- ingly hard if I have something to live for. You. Next weekend. I love you like fury... your own sylvia”. Overleaf Plath has typed out Street Song, adding at the end “(I have copies of my ones, so just write about them and rip apart in your letters)” and signed it “love, s.” An important letter, showing the close literary collaboration between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and the debt his success owed to her criticism, endeavour and enterprise. Plath had written to Peter Davison then a staff member at The Atlantic (and later a long-serv - ing Poetry Editor), the previous week, partly in order to update him on her life and work, but chiefly to introduce him to the work of Ted Hughes, “this writer I found is named Ted Hughes... I became his agent, as it were, in America, and so far, he’s received enthusiastic acceptances... He is a brilliant writer and London and England are too small for him.” She was endeavouring to get Ted’s poems in front of the magazine’s editor Edward Weeks, hav - ing already secured his work places in August issues of Poetry and Nation . In addition to the poems, she had written to Davison about Ted’s children’s fables, and conveys to Ted here that she will type them all up and send them off to the The Atlantic . In addition to acting as Ted’s agent and typist, the rest of the letter shows her role as an essen - tial critic of his work. Particular attention is given to a poem Plath calls ‘Horses Of The Sun’, a poem that Christopher Reid in The Letters Of Ted Hughes has described as an early version of ‘The Horses’, which appeared in The Hawk In The Rain. If he is correct, then Plath’s sug -
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gested revisions altered the poem drastically from the sections which are quoted in this letter. In all events, her lengthy, detailed and astute criticism is clearly a crucial part of Ted’s writing process. This was something that was acknowledged and appreciated by Ted, who had written to his brother earlier that year, “As a result of her influence I have written continually and every day better since I met her. She is a very fine critic of my work, and abuses just those parts of it that I daren’t confess to myself are unworthy.” He also confessed in a letter to his sister Olwyn that Plath was, “as fine a literary critic as I have met.” Plath too, sought criticism from her spouse on her work, enclosing with this letter a typed draft of ‘Street Song’. Despite informing Ted that the poem could be “attacked brutally”, he found no fault in it in his reply, “The movement is very good - firm, discreet, passionate. And the statement open, not tortoised in imagery” (The Letters Of Ted Hughes, p. 65). This indicates that the changes between the version in this letter, and that which appeared in Plath’s Collected Poems were made at Plath’s own discretion. An exceptional exemplar of Plath’s influence on both the business and creative aspects of Hughes’s work. PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £65,000
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“I have no desire, above my typewriter, to do anything except work for you” 3. “Tuesday morning” [9 October 1956]. An extraordinary letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes, covering suicide, her devo- tion for him, and two stories she is working on. Five sides of blue letter paper (three sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,600 words), with a three line autograph postscript signed “your loving wife sylvia”. Plath opens with news of Cambridge and how isolated she feels there, “How I live for your letters; such queer things are happening to me; I feel that in myself I am ob- serving the progress of a deadly disease never before recorded... I can’t stand anyone; especially men.” Her dependence on Ted is underlined, quite starkly, at the end of this passage, “I think if anything ever happened to you, I would really kill myself... I shall never leave your side a day in my life after exams.” The struggle of being apart from Ted is also having an impact on her writing. Despite having “a growing feeling, perhaps also delusive, of a new prowess in knowing what I want to say”, she feels that “away from you my own judgments are all out of kilter, or to cock, and I can’t tell if I’ve been typing over and over on the same line immortal folderol or what”. Plath goes on to describe in detail two recently completed stories, in which suicide and a dark humour both feature and foreshadow The Bell Jar. ‘The Wishing-Box’ is about a “dreamless woman” with a “complete escapist” husband, who kills herself with an overdose of sleeping pills, “It’s actually a very humorous terrible little story”. She con- fides later in the letter that her dreamless woman, “is certainly an aspect of one of my selves now”. In writing the second story ‘Invisible Man’, Plath finds “I best like doing completely realistic descriptions of psychological states, giving them symbolic form”. The protag- onist is a young man who suddenly becomes “invisible to himself, but to no one else”. As a result, his self-image is not based on what he can see, but on the reactions to him of everybody he meets, “it is as if he must seek his own true image, the proof of his corporeal existence, in the eyes and reflections around him.” She decides that this same fate will befall her character’s son, who will become invisible at college “but, of a more artistic nature, commit suicide by drowning. That Narcissistic leap. It must be funny, but terribly serious.” She asks Ted for suggestions on what it might feel like to be an invisible man, before, perhaps thinking she had taken up too much time on her own work, returning to his, “After I get this story done, and the 150 odd pages I have to type typed (between us we
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have written colossal amounts!), I shall start on your terrific plots”. Plath then returns to the “queer things” she had been feeling, and how she had become a social recluse, “I work; you work; we work. I have no desire, above my typewriter and my cows, to do anything except work for you, slave for you, make myself an always richening woman for you; and that is that”. Although being apart from Ted continues to be a “wrenched horror”, Plath finds “I am more miserable among people than alone.” She complains of having terrible difficulty sleeping without him, and begs him to stay an extra night on his trip to London the coming weekend, before signing “I love you more than the whole gibbering world which owes it existence & worth - if it has any - to your being in it - your loving wife sylvia”. Plath had now been apart from Hughes for ten days, and the strain of that separation was tak - ing an increased toll on her psychological state. At one point she remarks, “I have never spent such an intolerable numbed two weeks. Two-- -it is still only one; my god”. She had found that occupying as much of her time with writing helped, but still it was the case that misery could hit which “dashed all this sense of industry”. The two stories detailed here mark a notable development in Plath as a prose writer. She iden - tifies clearly her talent for both psychological descriptions and using black humour to approach serious subjects. The parallels of the college suicide of the second story and Plath’s own expe - riences are difficult to avoid drawing, but as Heather Clark has noted, “Plath never mentioned her history with suicide in her love letters”. Indeed, in replying to Sylvia’s description of ‘The Wishing Box’, Ted wrote “this is the kind of poetic theme you could make exclusively your own ground.” More important than the biographical implications of these stories is that Plath had identified an approach for dealing with suicide in fiction. This would later find its full realisation in her
masterpiece of vivid psychological description and black humour, The Bell Jar. PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-).
Price: £50,000
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“it is beautiful writing; it is the writing of a genius and a teddy-ponk” 4. “wednesday morning early october 17” [17 October 1956]. An exceptional literary letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes. Four sides of blue letter paper (two sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,200 words) signed “your own sylvia” with a five-line autograph postscript. Plath opens with the news that Mademoiselle had rejected three of her stories, “I knew it would come, but some small foolhardy little part of me didn’t know it for sure and was sorry and depressed.” Nevertheless, Plath resolves to use the rejection to make her work harder, to “build up a kind of defiant high-pressure resentment and maybe fight harder; better than getting a too-easy acceptance and then relaxing”. She writes of her joy at receiving Ted’s letters, “how I love your letters. picture me sitting at the head of the long table in whitstead dining room, immersed in reading and re-reading your words... it is beautiful writing; it is the writing of a genius and a teddy-ponk”. Plath then outlines her plans and feelings for the day - finishing a paper on Augustine, but “I shall probably be compelled to write a poem in the old procrasti- nator’s tradition. I don’t like today; not at all; I felt depressed, too, last night”. Plath then turns to their literary endeavours, encouraging Ted’s work on a new play and a long worked on children’s story called “Snatchcraftington”. Plath’s idea was to “find an audience in the course of a year” for the children’s animal fables, and then offer out this story. Both were still waiting on magazines for acceptances, and Plath reflects that “of only one of my 4 stories and your children’s fables would be accepted now. I get much sadder about prose returns than poetry, somehow.” The magazine Nimbus has asked Hughes to submit some poems to them, which leads Plath to critique Auden’s ‘The Epigoni’ and ‘Merax and Mullin’ which had recently appeared in those pages, “there was such an unpleasant nastiness to them; like grind- ing metal; if someone would print these poems in paragraph form, I think it might embarrass the hell out of the ‘poet’, because it’s atrocious prose”. She then retells some strange but pleasant dreams she has recently experienced, “as if my story about dreams in part exorcised my worry about bad dreams”. In the first “a lovely, rich one, brightly coloured”, she and Hughes find “a patch of huge green four leaf clovers”. Later in the dream, she is composing a sonnet by the riverside, but “with the casual cocksureness of dreams, didn’t bother to memorize it when I was writing, but knew it had the words “luminous vein” in it and was indeed a very luminous poem”. Plath is pleased that she “shouldn’t worry about my nights anymore”, and signs with
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an autograph postscript, “love you, every bit of you, and kiss your damn london-gone mouth and love you - please go on writing - I love your letters - your own sylvia”. A vivid snapshot of Plath juggling her creative and academic work with her depressive states and the struggles of solitude. She had been submitting stories and poems on both of their behalves to American magazines since May but had been particularly industrious since September in offering work. The rejec - tion by Mademoiselle of her three stories obviously hurt, but the previous week she had de - scribed these as “incredibly dull”, and in any case she felt that her prose work was continuing to improve. Plath had been wrestling with Augustine in recent tutorials with Dr Krook, but her plans to complete her paper on The City Of God that afternoon did not come to fruition, not complet - ing the 13-pager until 2am. Ted’s work continued to be a focus too, and she was pleased that Nimbus magazine had asked him to contribute, even if she didn’t approve of Auden’s recent contributions. Sylvia’s dreams were a source of fascination for Ted, who encouraged her to record them and report them to him. Replying to this most recent account, he wrote, “What’s happened to your dreams? Probably now you’ve started writing all that out, you have - as you say - exorcised it, or at least got it under control. Perhaps it’s been pushing and glooming your imagination for long enough But if you keep up a detailed and vivid looking at things, your dreams will go on improving” (18 October 1956). PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £45,000
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“I’ll stick to Yeats and you, thanks” 5. “thursday afternoon 2:30 october 17” [18 October 1956]. A reflective letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes, on Cambridge and their literary progress. Four sides of NewnhamCollege letter paper (two sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,000 words) signed “your sylvia” with a four line autograph post- script. Plath is writing following her Thursday morning tutorial with Dr Krook, “having, miraculously, as usual, completed in the small hours of 2am or so a 13 page paper outlining the uniqueness & chief tenets of the christian gospel.” Her paper, she writes, particularly objected to the Christian view of the origin of evil, “god’s foreknowledge and man’s free will, and the low, debased view of physical love between man and women even in ‘blameless wedlock’”. Plath is still taken with her tutor in the “lovely dr krook”, who she sees as “my one woman friend, here; she is the kind of teacher I would slave to be and these next two terms should be deeply rewarding just for what I can learn of lecturing and discus- sion-leading from her”. She contrasts this friendship to the difficulty she has spending time with college-mates whom she is accompanying to the Union. She takes particular exception to “vehement catholics; narrow, secure, and incredibly pious”, and as a re- sult, she writes “so I walk alone. and I really am all right.” She shares the news of her story ‘The Day Mr Prescott Died’ being accepted by Granta with little thrill (“it seems slight to me now”), and “all else is quiet as death; in a week from the day after tomorrow I shall be seeing you again.” Plath then turns to their future living arrangements, sharing Dr Krook’s suggestion that Ted might teach locally at the American Army Base, but is resolved that he will probably head to Spain as planned, “Spain is probably best. I would almost rather be either fully with you for a long period and fully away while I must work, than be torn when with you by knowing I must leave in a day, and torn when away by counting the days till I return.” Plath is more excited by the prospects for Ted’s children’s fables, which she continues to edit and type for submission to The Atlantic , while awaiting a decision on them from the children’s program at the BBC, “I would fly up with joy if your children’s fables-- -any or all---get accepted by the BBC.” Her other editorial and agency enterprises on his behalf are also represented by asking for a copy of Hughes’s ‘Egg-Head’, “so I can make copies of them to keep on eternal file”. She closes by dismissing the work of Peter Redgrove and John Crowe Ransome, in
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spite of their praise of Ted’s work, “I’ll stick to Yeats and you, thanks”, before signing with a four line autograph postscript, “Take care, eat steak, and I kiss and kiss your mouth and all over in crannies & nooks my dear lovely own teddy - your sylvia”. This letter shows Plath more immersed in Cambridge life, especially thanks to Dorothea Krook (1920-1989) her supervisor and favourite teacher at Cambridge. Krook later recalled Plath as “one of the most deeply, movingly responsive pupils I had ever had. I felt the things I said, we said, her authors said, mattered to her in an intimate way, an - swering to intense personal needs, reaching to depths of her spirit.” (Clark, Red Comet, p.442). In this letter Plath calls her “my one woman friend, here”, in contrast with her peers who are condemned as artificial extroverts or pious, vehement Catholics. She passes on the news that the university magazine Granta will publish her story ‘The Day Mr Prescott Died’, which was based on the death of a close friend’s father in 1954, but the story “seems slight to me now”. She is much more excited about Hughes’s submission of a group of children’s fables, which she is typing up for submission to The Atlantic , although she bridles against the publisher’s stric - tures against depicting gods in the stories. Sylvia was a great champion of Ted’s animal fables, though they would not be published until after her death, when Faber issued them as How The Whale Became (1963). PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £35,000
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“I’m sure you’ll win this; I feel very queer about it”
6. “friday morning october 19” [19 October 1956]. An extraordinary, long letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes, announcing her discov- ery of the poetry competition that would make his name. Six sides of Newnham Col - lege letter paper (three sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,500 words), signed “your own love wife, sylvia” with a ten line autograph postscript. During the letter Plath is recording the events of the previous evening’s trip to a sher - ry reception at the Union, something she was not looking forward to in her previous letter. She was impressed by the venue “white plaster and dark beams, very fine inner room”, and spoke to “various vintage toothy englishwomen” before being confronted by a wave of American students she had previously met but couldn’t remember, “I managed my usual story of being a cretin about remembering names and places”. Plath records in a revealing passage how her development of a writer has changed her approach to social life: “all the time some machiavellian little part of me was sitting in a corner scribbling notes and laughing and laughing; it is so strange now, to me---my social self is no longer all of me thrown out on a long leash and sniffing about enthusiastically---it is seated way deep down and doesn’t give itself or commit itself, but watches and notes, and manages this other part which talks and gestures”. Having batted off the Americans, Plath was “invited to dinner by the queerest british couple yet”. The husband worked for the British Council and had published some po- ems, and had a “strange big soft towering wife, who looks like his mother and wears no ring and has graying hair”. Their literary gossip was hugely appealing to Plath. The man was John Press, who had known Louis MacNeice in Greece, and recounted to her the marital affairs of the litera - ti, including Auden, Macneice, Spender, and Kathleen Raine, “I have never heard such a fascinating and disgusting story: they are all linked by some first, second or third wife and have simply traded off wives in the most incredible and burlesque fashion”. She sees the clear potential for drama in this and recommends Hughes use it as the basis for a new play, “this could be a terrific thing… am I giving you plots?” Having by return told them about Ted, Press offered Plath the addresses of all the lit- erary magazines in England, and told her of a book contest, “this contest is american-sponsered by harper’s and as a prize offers only publication of the book, which is the usual prize for such things and would be good auspices to get your book out under. it must be by a poet who has not yet published a book (any-
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thing in the english language is eligible) and is due by november 30. it must be double spaced and about 60 pages. now, I ran right home and counted, estimating your poems double-spaced. 55 pages. almost exact. let me do this typing (it will give me the excuse of having a carbon of all your stuff to keep eternally, which I wanted anyhow). I’m sure you’ll win this; I feel very queer about it.” Plath’s prescient confidence in Ted’s ability to win the prize is also reflected in her as - sessment of the judging panel of Auden, Spender, and Marianne Moore, “I trust miss moore’s exactness & love of form; and you certainly have enough wit to win auden and social war consciousness to please spender.” Plath tells Ted to bring his MS to London on his next visit so they can finalise his entry, and thanks him for his last letter, “your voice is like the spirit of god on the waters. I really move in it and with it. I love you to tell me things about reading.” She closes the letter with a ten line autograph postscript, “I love you and perish to be with you and lying in bed with you and kissing you all over and go just wild with thinking + wishing + remembering your dear lovely mouth + incredibly lovely made flesh and oh how warm you are. I love you teddy teddy teddy and how I wish I could be with you, living with you, and writing in granchester or something. All my love ever / Your own love wife / sylvia” Sylvia Plath discovers the poetry competition that would make Ted Hughes’s name. Press was an important figure in postwar British literary circles, and his mentioning of the poetry contest was to make an indelible mark on Plath’s and Hughes’s careers. The contest was open to any poet who had not yet published a book, with the prize being publication by Harper’s. Plath immediately thought Hughes should enter. She had already written with some prescience that America would be where Hughes would make his mark, when she remarked in a letter to Peter Davison that “London and England are too small for him”. Plath typed up Hughes’s manuscript and submitted it to the competition the following month. The judges were W.H. Auden, Marianne Moore, and Stephen Spender, all of which Plath had met, and she thought each would have their reasons for liking Ted’s work. She reported her con - fidence in his genius and inevitable victory in a letter to her mother that month, “I don’t see how they can help but accept this it’s the most rich, power work since Yeats and Dylan Thomas.” Hughes’s victory and subsequent publication of The Hawk In The Rain was announced the following February. It received high acclaim from every reviewer from A. Alvarez to Edwin Muir, and quickly sold out. PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £60,000
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“It is simply a sin not to live with you”
7. [21 October 1956]. An exceptionally emotionally charged letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes, on being unable to live without him and begging a return to living together. Six sides of blue letter paper (three sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 950 words) signed “love and more love - sylvia” and later, “your own sylvia”. Smudges to the ink in a number of places, likely teardrops. Plath writes to Ted in a state of despair at being apart from him “in spite of all my spas- modic calm & resolve I feel horrid & very black & wicked. it is simply a sin not to live with you. I could cry.” The first part of the letter is an exposition of her loneliness and inability to work, “The constant, deep - (so deep it is forming into vivid terrible night- mares) sense of terror, lack, superstition (symbolised by that traumatic last meeting in London which almost drove me wild)”. Ted’s permanent presence in Cambridge would be her solution, “I can probe & root most deeply & well when planted every minute in the rich, almost unconscious feel- ing of your presence”. Her desperation grows and she tries to convince Ted to make the move in spite of the fact that, “you hate cambridge & wouldn’t want to come here again, I know”. The other obstacle, would be College and scholarship authorities who might object to the marriage, “even now some opportunistic devil in me is arguing our case”. The upside, however, would be worth it, “I could then combine love &writing & study much better then splitting them this abnormal way - wasting time when away from you in wishing you were here & wasting time with you by cursing the swiftness of that time & dreading fresh separation”. All of this, she says in her final plea, “pales before the fact that I am rightfully sylvia hughes & I feel sad, sick & disinherited. my first purpose is not just a wedding - it is you; I am married to you & would work & write best in living with you. I waste so much strength in simply fighting my tears for you - please understand about this & help me work it out”. She then signs, “love & more love - sylvia”, before adding a two page postscript. Here Plath turns to the practical side of the potential move, “...the one difficult act would be telling newnham (there are married students here, though few; & dr. Krook, I’m sure, would back me up) & the fulbright (they also have many married students, though mostly male) & getting a place to live & moving me”. But she is convinced that it would work out, and be worth it, “all is as nothing without you, without constantly
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expressing my love for you”. She resolves that she would first seek out Dr Krook’s advice, before speaking to Newn - ham and Fulbright, and hopes that Ted’s hate of Cambridge might be overcome by living in Granchester, “you could write, teach part time & go to London for occasional BBC broadcasts”. She signs, for the second time, “I love you so - your own Sylvia”. This extraordinary letter marks the end of Plath’s third week back in Cambridge, and the culmi - nation of unbearable separation, growing bouts of depression and a crisis of identity. Being apart from Ted had been affecting her work, creative and academic, as well as her mental state, which is characterised here as a “constant, deep sense of terror”. The secondary effect of being apart from Ted is on Plath’s identity. Living alone in Cambridge she was unable to admit her marriage, for fear that her college might expel her and her scholar - ship might be cancelled. Moreover, if she did announce their marriage now, the gala wedding ceremony planned for America the next summer would have to be cancelled, and they would be deprived of the wedding presents they needed to begin their life together. The result of this was that she was forced to live a lie, “I am rightfully sylvia hughes & I feel sad, sick & disinherited.” PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £60,000
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“all is calm, now, and it is a fresh day” 8. “monday noon october 22” [22 October 1956].
A contrastingly measured letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes about her dreams. Two sides of blue letter paper (one sheet, folded horizontally, approximately 560 words) signed “sylvia”. Compared to her previous letter, Plath acknowledges, she is “calm, now, and it is a fresh day; but the feelings I wrote about occur and recur, in spite of lulls and resolute plodding on”. She tells Hughes that she has written two poems this morning, ‘Ev- ergreens’ (which “is particularly written to send to the new yorker”) and ‘Sheen & Speck’ which “describes my walk yesterday morning”. Plath then recounts her dreams of the previous night, in the first of which she “dreamt much of mrs cantor & joan”, before receiving the following morning “the first letter from mrs. cantor I’ve had in 6 months”. The second dream is vividly recounted, with her and Ted living with her favourite tutor Dr Krook, “both of us being a kind of sor - cerer’s apprentice; she was, we decided, a magic, dangerous witch, and we would discover her power, but hide our intention, as she kept us working mercilessly and always was appearing just as we thought we were alone.” She continues “it came as close to any dream I’ve had for years in giving me the delight and breathless soaring I used to have in my flying dreams.” In closing, she sends news of her research into her scholarship conditions, “I looked up the fulbright lists and found three married women on it; so singleness is not a condi- tion of a fulbright for ladies.” She signs, “I love you & love you sylvia”. This is the last surviving letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes. The following day she telegrammed Ted urging him to come to Cambridge. He replied to say that he agreed their separation “seems mad”, and was soon there. Plath told Dr Krook of her marriage. She was sympathetic and reassuring about her scholarship. Neither Newnham nor the Fulbright objected to the marriage as they both had feared: “Far from taking away Sylvia’s scholarship or throwing her out, they congratulated her. The Fulbright took the view that the union was a boost to Anglo-American relations, which was their raison d’être. Ted was free to move to Cambridge” (Jonathan Bate, Ted Hughes). Hughes lived in her college rooms until early December, when they took up a ground floor flat on the edge of the city. They stayed here, together, until leaving for America in June. PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £35,000
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“in a kind of intuitive vision I saw that he could be a great poet” 9. To Edith And William Hughes [27 February 1957]. An exceptional letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted’s parents following his winning of the Harper’s poetry prize. Four sides of blue letter paper (two sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 700 words) signed “SYLVIA”. Plath opens breathlessly, “Isn’t he wonderful! You know, the telegram came Saturday, exactly a year after our first meeting at the St Botolph’s party celebrating Ted’s poems & I knew then - having read his poems even before I met him - in a kind of intuitive vision I saw he could be a great poet - like Yeats, or Dylan Thomas & probably better.” Plath describes the standing of the judging panel, “the judges were not mealy-mouthed little poets (who I honestly believe are scared to publish Ted’swork for fear his brilliance will eclipse their own piddling poems) - nor un-poet editors - but the 3 greatest living poets today!” These were W. H. Auden, Marianne Moore and Stephen Spender, “all brilliant people, big enough to recognize genius when they see it - & the genius is Ted!”. She describes how they received the news, “the meaning of the news sank in & we began to jump up & down, roaring & skipping like Donkey in Ted’s animal fables”. “The prestige and reputation of this” Plath explains “makes up for the fact that poetry books don’t generally earn money. But of course, under the auspices of these grand judges, it may turn into a best seller”. She shares the title of the book and describes with pride that “I typed it all up on spe- cial paper in November & it is over 50 pages long - very fine - most first poetry books are about only 30 pages.” She shares her hope to get many of the poems published in magazines in advance of the book, as well as their shared hope that “both of us can give up teaching & studying & devote all our time to writing.” She signs, “lots of love to you both - SYLVIA”. A vivid record of the turning point in both Plath and Hughes’s poetic careers, Ted’s victory in the Harper’s poetry contest and subsequent publication of The Hawk In The Rain. The award was as much a testament to Sylvia’s enterprise and creativity as Ted’s - she dis - covered news of the competition, criticised drafts of the poems, did all of Ted’s typing, and submitted his entry to the competition. It is no overstatement to remark that, without Plath’s endeavour, The Hawk In The Rain may have never been published. PROVENANCE: William (1894-1981) and Edith Hughes (1898-1969); Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998); Frieda Hughes (1960-). Price: £22,500
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a series of family photographs, each annotated by plath
The following images offer an intimate photographic record of Plath’s first years of motherhood, with each of these mementos annotated by her to record the subject, time, or location of the photograph. Plath wrote in a letter to Marcia B. Stern in April 1957 that she wanted to be a “triple threat woman” - wife, mother and poet. For the period covered by these photographs, from Frieda’s birth in 1960 to her Christening in 1962, she was, most unusually for an artist of her time, successfully all three. Any material inscribed in Plath’s hand, let alone items of such intimate personal sig- nificance, is rare in commerce.
10. “Frieda Almost New” [April 1960]. Original photograph of Sylvia Plath and her daughter Frieda. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath to verso, “Frieda almost new / Chalcot Square”. A little blurred [41663] £950
11. “Frieda About 3 Months” [July 1960]. Original photograph of Sylvia Plath and her daughter Frieda. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Frieda about 3 months”. [41647] £750
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12. “Frieda, Mummy & Raggedy Ann, Chalcot Square” [December 1960]. Original photograph of Sylvia Plath and Frieda. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Frieda, mummy & Raggedy ann / Chalcot Square”. [41650] Sold 13. “Frieda Rebecca & Father” [August 1960]. Original photograph of Ted Hughes and Frieda. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Frieda Rebecca & father (4 months old)”. [41654] £1,250 14. “Court Green” “September 1961”. Original photograph of Sylvia Plath and Frieda outside Court Green. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Court Green / September 1961”. [41646] Sold
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15. “Frieda, Mummy & Isis” [1961]. Original photograph of Plath and Frieda posing in front of a depiction of the goddess Isis, reproduced from Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652, p. 189). 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Frieda, Mummy & Isis”. [41651] Sold 16. Plath On Primrose Hill [1961]. Original photograph of Sylvia Plath, walking with a pram on Primrose Hill. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “The elephantine pram”. [41652] £950 17. “Ted & Frieda In New Red Hat” [1961]. Original photograph of Ted Hughes with Frieda. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Sylvia Plath, “Ted & Frieda in new red hat”. Image a little blurred. [41653] £950
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18. “Frieda - 21 Months Old” “January 1962”. Original colour photograph of Sylvia Plath and Frieda. They are sat in front of a bookcase at Court Green. 75x75mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Frieda - 21 months old / January 1962”. Slightly faded. [41645] £1,250
19. “Court Green - Christening Day” “March 25, 1962”. Original photograph of Sylvia Plath and Frieda. 60x60mm. Inscribed by Plath, “Court Green / Christening Day / March 25, 1962”. [41648] £1,250
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sylvia plath’s own copy
20. Light Blue, Dark Blue An Anthology of Recent Writing from Oxford and Cambridge Universities Macdonald, 1960.
First edition. Original blue cloth in printed dustwrapper. Sylvia Plath’s own copy with her ownership inscription, “Ted+Sylvia Hughes / London 1960”. A near fine copy with a touch of wear to the corners and a little foxing to the preliminary leaves in a near fine dustwrapper. [41519] £12,500 Sylvia Plath’s own copy of an early anthology containing two poems from her and one from Ted Hughes. Although by no means Plath’s first appearance in print, her contribution represents an early appearance in book form, predating her first individual collection, The Colossus, by a year. At the time of publication Sylvia had been married to Ted for some three and a half years and was expecting their first child. She was in the habit of marking their books using her married name. Inscribed copies of Plath’s work are of the utmost rarity in commerce. PROVENANCE: Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), ownership inscription; Ted Hughes (1930- 1988); Olwyn Hughes (1928-2016).
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inscribed for ted’s aunt and cousin
21. The Colossus And Other Poems Heinemann, 1961.
First edition. Original green cloth in white printed dustwrapper. Author’s presentation copy, inscribed to her husband’s (Ted Hughes) aunt and cousin, “For Hilda + Vicky with lots of love from Sylvia January 1, 1961” A fine copy in a very good dustwrapper, slightly tanned to the spine with a couple of short closed tears. [39040] £30,000 A rare presentation copy of Plath’s first collection of poetry, the only one published in her life - time. Hilda Farrar and her daughter Vicky were Ted Hughes’s aunt and cousin respectively. Sylvia and Ted had spent Christmas of 1960 in Yorkshire, visiting Hilda and Vicky. They returned to London on New Year’s Eve, with Sylvia sending a copy of her recently published book immediately on her return. Presentation copies of The Colossus are rare, generally being given only to family members and close friends. PROVENANCE: Hilda Farrar (Ted’s aunt) andVickyWatling (née Farrar, Ted’s cousin).
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ted hughes’s copy
22. The Bell Jar Heinemann, 1963.
First edition. Original black cloth, lettered gilt, in the pictorial dustwrapper by Thomas Simmonds. Ted Hughes’s copy with his ownership signature to the front endpaper. A very good copy indeed, in the very good, bright dustwrapper, rear panel marked and some rubbing and creasing to extremities. [41606] Sold An exceptional association copy of Plath’s only novel, bearing the ownership inscription of her husband Ted Hughes. The Bell Jar was published under a pseudonym on January 14th 1963 to good reviews but little fanfare. Its second half had been deemed unsuccessful by American publisher’s and the novel would not become the bestseller that Plath hoped may be her salvation. Despite their estrangement, and the recent broadcast of Difficulties Of A Bridegroom, Sylvia invited Ted to Fitzroy Road for sherry on January 23rd to celebrate the novel’s publication. Hughes described the occasion, and his first sight of the book, in his unpublished poem ‘Trial’: “We toasted it. I admire the cover The dim, distorted image of a girl Dissolving in a Bell Jar... Was it then or through the following week You showed me the reviews. No pannings. No raves. So there it was. The novel had been written, And published, and here was the world’s response.” Aside from this visit, Hughes visited Plath and the children weekly in the period leading up to her death on February 11th. Beyond Plath’s own copy of the book, copies inscribed by her are unknown. On Monday Febru - ary 4th, she wrote to Elizabeth Compton, the book’s dedicatee, saying she was sending “a copy of The Bell Jar under separate cover”, but as biographer Heather Clark notes, “she never did”. Indeed, Compton didn’t receive her copy until after Plath’s death, when Ted Hughes gave it to her and remarked, “it doesn’t fall to many men to murder a genius.” Inscribed copies being all but unobtainable, this is as close and as significant as association copies of The Bell Jar get. PROVENANCE: Ted Hughes (1930-1988) ownership signature; Frieda Hughes (Hughes and Plath’s daughter).
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