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Sylvia Plath Collections: Sylvia Plath collection, 1952-1989

Emory University recently put a finding aid online for the Sylvia Plath collection, 1952-1989. A small collection, but one certainly with significant materials for the Plath scholar.

The items were purchased in 2014 and include:

Folder 1: Compass, Southeastern Massachusetts University, Summer 1987
Folder 2: Mademoiselle, January 1959
Folder 3: The New Yorker, August 3, 1963 [2 copies, one annotated by Aurelia Plath]
Folder 4: Smith Review, Fall 1952
Folder 5: Smith Review, Spring 1953 [annotated by Aurelia Plath]
Folder 6: Thomas, Trevor, Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters, 1989 [inscribed from the author to Richard Larschan and includes a letter from Thomas to Larschan and several clippings about the work]

The material in folder 1, Compass is the the magazine of Southern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), and features an article by Maeve Hickock titled "Aurelia Plath and Richard Larschan". The article is about the video production of the Plath program in the Voices and Visions series from 1986. A second article, "A Case of Mistaken Identity" by Charles White, is on the then recent Jane Anderson lawsuit against Ted Hughes and the makers of the 1979 film version of The Bell Jar.

The materials in folders 2 through 5 are original periodicals featuring Plath's work ("The Times are Tidy" in Mademoiselle, January 1959; seven poems ("Two Campers in Cloud Country", "The Elm Speaks" ["Elm"], "Mystic", "Amnesiac", "Mirror", "Among the Narcissi", and "The Moon and the Yew Tree" -- essentially everything the magazine had purchased from Plath since 1960 yet to be printed) in The New Yorker, 3 August 1963; "Sunday at the Mintons'" from Smith Review, Fall 1952; and "Mad Girl's Love Song", "To Eva Descending the Stair"; and "Doomsday" from Smith Review, Spring 1953. Each of these contains annotations in Aurelia Plath's hand. Particularly moving is Aurelia Plath's commenting that she relates to every word in stanza 10 from "Elm": "I am inhabited by a cry. / Nightly it flaps out, / Looking, with its hooks, for something to love."

The Trevor Thomas materials in Folder 6 include a copy of Thomas' limited edition memoir Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters; a letter from Thomas to Larschan dated 30 November 1989; and a photocopy of a newspaper clipping "Poet Laureate Serves Writ on Professor" from Bedfordshire on Sunday 21 January 1990, page 9. The letter concerns Aurelia Plath, Anne Stevenson & Bitter Fame; Clarissa Roche; mentions Elizabeth Sigmund; and the lawsuit against Thomas by Ted Hughes.

All links accessed 23 & 27 January 2015.  Post modified 3 May 2015.
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