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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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