Red Comet

by Heather Clark

  113. SP to AP, 24 Mar. 1955. L1, 905.

  114. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 26 Jan. 1955. L1, 870.

  115. SP, 24 Jan. 1954, 1954–55 calendar. 7.6, Lilly; SP to Mel Woody, 26 Jan. 1955. L1, 873.

  116. SP to Mel Woody, 26 Jan. 1955. L1, 873–74.

  117. SP to AP, 2 Feb. 1955. L1, 882.

  118. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 10 Feb. 1955. L1, 895.

  119. They were “Rondeau Doublé,” “Temper of Time,” “Winter Words,” “Apparel for April,” “Dirge” (retitled “Lament”), “Elegy,” “The Dream,” “Prologue to Spring,” and “Epitaph in Three Parts.”

  120. SP, Smith scrapbook. 12.O8, Lilly.

  121. SP to AP, 2 Feb. 1955. L1, 882.

  122. OHP to AP, 28 Dec. 1955. Lilly.

  123. 7.7, Lilly.

  124. Seventeen (March 1953), 9.

  125. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 10 Feb. 1955. L1, 894.

  126. SP to AP, 10 Feb. 1955. L1, 890–93.

  127. Richard Sassoon to SP, c. Feb. Mar., May & Apr. 1955. Lilly. Sassoon promises not to spank Plath but “to beat” her if she ever angers him “greatly.” 14 Feb. 1955. Lilly. (Date supplied from content and postmark.)

  128. Richard Sassoon to SP, 20 Apr. 1955. Lilly.

  129. SP to AP, 16 Apr. 1955. L1, 908–909.

  130. “Notes from Judges,” 21 Apr. 1955. Lilly.

  131. SP to AP, 23 Apr. 1955. L1, 913.

  132. Edward Weeks to SP, 18 Apr. 1955. Lilly.

  133. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 26 Apr. 1955. L1, 920.

  134. SP to AP, 21 Apr. 1955. L1, 912.

  135. SP to AP, 21 May 1955. L1, 929.

  136. SP to AP, 25 Apr. 1955. L1, 918.

  137. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 26 Apr. 1955. L1, 919.

  138. SP to AP, 21 May 1955. L1, 929.

  139. SP, Smith scrapbook. 12.O8, Lilly.

  140. Nancy Hunter Steiner, A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of Sylvia Plath (New York: Harper Magazine Press, 1973), 81.

  141. LH, 176; Harriet Rosenstein interview with Peter and Jane Davison, 1973. 1.22, MSS 1489, Emory.

  142. SP, Smith scrapbook. 12.O8, Lilly.

  143. SP to Lynn Lawner, 8 June 1955. L1, 932.

  144. SP to AP, 29 Jan. 1955. L1, 880.

  145. OHP to AP, 26 June 1955. Lilly.

  146. SP to WP, 6 July 1955. L1, 936.

  147. She wrote in her June–October 1955 calendar that she finished the story on 8 Aug.

  148. 8.16, Lilly.

  149. Lyric took “Apotheosis” and “Second Winter,” which appeared in the Winter 1956 issue. The New Orleans Poetry Journal took “Lament.”

  150. The stories were “Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit,” “The Day Mr. Prescott Died,” and “Tongues of Stone.”

  151. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 28 July 1955. L1, 942.

  152. Lucinda Baker, “No Literary Slump for Lucinda,” The Writer’s Year Book 26 (Cincinnati: F. & W. Publishing, 1955), 11–15. Plath annotated the article.

  153. SP to AP, 12 Aug. 1955. L1, 955.

  154. Peter Davison, The Fading Smile: Poets in Boston from Robert Lowell to Sylvia Plath (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 40.

  155. HC interview with Phil McCurdy, May 2016, Ogunquit, Maine.

  156. Henry Volkening to SP, 25 Aug. 1955. Lilly.

  157. Richard Sassoon to SP, 10 June 1955. Lilly.

  158. Richard Sassoon to SP, 4 June 1955. Lilly.

  159. SP to WP, 28 July 1955. L1, 945.

  160. Richard Sassoon to SP, 5 & 8 July 1955. Lilly.

  161. Richard Sassoon to SP, 9 Aug. 1955. Lilly.

  162. J, 432.

  163. Richard Sassoon to SP, 9 Aug. 1955. Lilly.

  164. Richard Sassoon to Harriet Rosenstein, c. 1974–76. 4.6, MSS 1489, Emory.

  165. Richard Sassoon to SP, 18 July 1955. Lilly.

  166. Richard Sassoon to SP, 19 July 1955. Lilly.

  167. Richard Sassoon to SP, 9 Aug. 1955. Lilly.

  168. Richard Sassoon to SP, 9 Aug. 1955. Lilly.

  169. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Peter and Jane Davison, 1972–75. 1.22, MSS 1489, Emory.

  170. Ibid.

  171. Davison, Fading Smile, 40.

  172. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Peter and Jane Davison, 1972–75. 1.22, MSS 1489, Emory.

  173. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 3 Aug. 1955. L1, 947.

  174. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 24 Aug. 1955. L1, 956.

  175. Ibid., L1, 957.

  176. Ibid., L1, 955–56.

  177. Ibid., L1, 957.

  178. SP to AP, 30 Aug. 1955. L1, 959.

  179. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 28 July 1955. L1, 942–43.

  180. 7.11, Lilly.

  181. OHP to SP, 14 Aug. 1955. Lilly.

  182. SP to WP, 28 July 1955. L1, 944.

  183. Ibid.

  184. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 11 Aug. 1955. L1, 952–53.

  15. CHANNEL CROSSING

  1. SP to AP, 9 Mar. 1956. L1, 1134.

  2. Lucas Myers, “Ah, Youth…Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath at Cambridge and After,” Grand Street 8.4 (Summer 1989): 86–103; 95.

  3. SP to Elinor Friedman, 28 Sept. 1955. L1, 965.

  4. “Remember, this was in 1955, and our cohort consisted mostly of unsophisticated people from conservative backgrounds and aspirations from all forty-eight states. Needless to say, it was noticed with interest.” Margaret Bolsterli to Peter K. Steinberg, 20 Jan. 2016. Email shared with HC with Bolsterli’s permission.

  5. SP to AP, 25 Sept. (#1 & #2) 1955. L1, 960; 963.

  6. SP to AP, 25 Sept. (#2) 1955. L1, 964.

  7. SP to Elinor Friedman, 28 Sept. 1955. L1, 965.

  8. Ibid.

  9. SP to AP, 25 Sept. (#1) 1955. L1, 961.

  10. SP to AP, 25 Sept. (#2) 1955. L1, 963.

  11. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 969.

  12. SP to AP, 25 Sept. (#1 & #2) 1955. L1, 959–62.

  13. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#1) 1955. L1, 966.

  14. SP to Marcia and Mike Plumer, 14 Dec. L1, 1056.

  15. SP to AP, 9 Oct. (#1) 1955. L1, 975.

  16. SP to AP, 9 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 977.

  17. SP to AP, 14 Oct. 1955. L1, 981.

  18. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 14 Dec. 1955. L1, 1056.

  19. SP to AP, 2 Feb. 1956. L1, 1095.

  20. Jane Baltzell Kopp remembered that the “appalling” winter of 1955–56 was said to be the coldest in ninety-five years. The gas heaters provided inadequate warmth. “It astounded me that with my head only four inches away from the radiants, it was still so cold in the room that my breath made vapor.” See Jane Baltzell Kopp in Memories of Whitstead. Privately printed by Rhoda Dorsey, 2007. 20.29, SPC, Smith.

  21. See Dina Dincauze’s memoir in ibid.

  22. HC interview with Jean Gooder, July 2017, Cambridge, UK.

  23. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#1) 1955. L1, 966.

  24. SP to AP, 9 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 977.

  25. SP to AP, 14 Oct. (#1) 1955. L1, 980.

  26. Ibid.

  27. SP to Jon Rosenthal, 14 Dec. 1955. L1, 1054.

  28. Jane Baltzell Kopp and Bert Wyatt-Brown among them.

  29. SP to Elinor Friedman, 27 Oct. 1955. L1, 996.

  30. SP to AP, 14 Oct. (#1) 1955. L1, 981.

  31. SP to AP, 24 Oct. 1955. L1, 992.

  32. Isabel Murray Henderson email to HC, 1 Nov. 2017.

  33. SP to AP, 25 Sept. (#2) 1955. L1, 963.

  34. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 968–70.

  35. Among those were Jean Pollard (South African), Jane Baltzell (an American Marshall scholar), Clodagh Elizabeth O’Dowd (South African), Isabel Murray (Scottish), Lois Marshall (American Ful
bright scholar), Elizabeth Kimber (American), and Margaret Roberts (South African), who took her on a tour of town on the back of her Vespa.

  36. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 968–69.

  37. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 3 Nov. 2015.

  38. Jean Gooder email to HC, 7 July 2017.

  39. SP to AP, 22 Nov. 1955. L1, 1016.

  40. J, 209.

  41. HC interview with Jean Gooder, July 2017, Cambridge, UK.

  42. SP to AP, 22 Nov. 1955. L1, 1016–17.

  43. May Collacott Targett email to HC, 13 Nov. 2017.

  44. SP to AP, 17 Jan. 1956. L1, 1084.

  45. J, 224.

  46. Dr. Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1977). First edition published in 1947. Quoted in Amy Westervelt, Forget Having It All: How America Messed Up Motherhood—and How to Fix It (New York: Seal Press, 2018), 129–30. Westervelt also notes that J. Edgar Hoover published work in the mid-1940s linking rising juvenile delinquency rates with working mothers (128).

  47. Jeremy Gavron, A Woman on the Edge of Time (New York: The Experiment, 2016), 61. Shortly after Gavron’s death, her PhD thesis was published as The Captive Wife, a landmark book in the emerging field of women’s studies.

  48. SP to TH, 3 Oct. 1956. L1, 1266.

  49. SP to AP, 25 Feb. 1956. L1, 1115.

  50. Isabel Murray Henderson email to HC, 1 Nov. 2017.

  51. SP, “Cambridge Letter,” Isis (16 May 1956): 9.

  52. The Poet Speaks: Interviews with Contemporary Poets, Peter Orr, ed. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966). Includes interview with SP conducted on 30 Oct. 1962 in London.

  53. HC interview with Jean Gooder, July 2017, Cambridge, UK.

  54. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 970.

  55. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Evelyn Evans, 1973. 1.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  56. SP to AP, 5 Oct. 1955. L1, 972.

  57. SP to AP, 24 Oct. 1955. L1, 993.

  58. SP to AP, 9 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 977.

  59. SP to AP, 7 Nov. 1955. L1, 1003.

  60. Christopher Levenson, Not One of the Boys, unpublished memoir provided to HC by Levenson.

  61. Jane Baltzell Kopp, “ ‘Gone, Very Gone Youth’: Sylvia Plath at Cambridge, 1955–1957,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, Edward Butscher, ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1977), 62–63.

  62. Philipa Forder Goold in Memories of Whitstead, 30. Privately printed by Rhoda Dorsey, 2007. 20.29, SPC, Smith; Goold to Harriet Rosenstein, 2 Apr. 1974. 1.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  63. Students Plath later taught at Smith would remember her voice as British-inflected, while her 1958 recording with Lee Anderson reveals a hybrid British-Boston accent. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  64. Michael Boddy email to EF, Apr. 2001. EFP.

  65. SP to AP, 2 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 969.

  66. SP to AP, 14 Nov. (#1) 1955. L1, 1005.

  67. SP to AP, 9 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 976.

  68. Otto Plath was similarly driven to master new subjects. Jane Baltzell Kopp did not recall Plath ever mentioning Otto, and recalled her discussing Aurelia only occasionally. “There was no way to guess the intensity of the influence.” HC phone interview, 4 Nov. 2015.

  69. SP to AP, 14 Nov. (#1) 1955. L1, 1006.

  70. SP to OHP, 13 Dec. 1955. L1, 1050–51.

  71. OHP to SP, 25 Oct. 1955. Lilly.

  72. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1955. L1, 1053.

  73. SP to AP, 29 Oct. 1955. L1, 998–99.

  74. SP to OHP, 13 Dec. 1955. L1, 1046.

  75. Mary Ellen Chase to SP, 8 Nov. 1955. Lilly.

  76. Plath listed her lectures’ specific days and times in her Michaelmas term schedule in her 1955–56 Heffer’s calendar, now at Lilly.

  77. SP to AP, 9 Oct. (#1) 1955. L1, 976.

  78. SP to Gordon Lameyer, 18 Oct. 1955. L1, 989.

  79. HC interview with Jean Gooder, July 2017, Cambridge, UK.

  80. Christopher Levenson, Not One of the Boys.

  81. Ibid.

  82. SP to AP, 24 (#1) Feb. 1956. L1, 1113.

  83. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  84. Christopher Levenson email to HC, 18 Oct. 2017.

  85. Christopher Levenson email to HC, 21 Oct. 2017.

  86. SP to Elinor Friedman, 27 Oct. 1955. L1, 994.

  87. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Mallory Wober, 1973. 4.23, MSS 1489, Emory.

  88. SP, 3 Dec. 1955, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  89. SP to Elinor Friedman, 12 Dec. 1955. L1, 1040.

  90. SP to AP, 21 Nov. 1955. L1, 1014.

  91. SP to AP, 14 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 982.

  92. SP to AP, 21 Nov. 1955. L1, 1014.

  93. SP to AP, 26 Nov. 1955. L1, 1027.

  94. SP to OHP, 13 Dec. 1955. L1, 1049.

  95. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Mallory Wober, 1973. 4.23, MSS 1489, Emory.

  96. SP to Elinor Friedman, 12 Dec. 1955. L1, 1040.

  97. SP to Richard Sassoon, 22 Nov. 1955. L1, 1018.

  98. SP to AP, 10 Dec. 1955. L1, 1033.

  99. SP to AP, 14 Nov. (#2) 1955. L1, 1009.

  100. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Richard Wertz, 1970. 4.20, MSS 1489, Emory.

  101. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Mallory Wober, 1973. 4.23, MSS 1489, Emory.

  102. SP to Mallory Wober, 19 Dec. 1955. L1, 1062.

  103. SP to AP, 29 Oct. 1955. L1, 998.

  104. SP to AP, 7 Nov. 1955. L1, 1002.

  105. SP to AP, 25 Jan. 1956. L1, 1091.

  106. SP to AP, 21 Nov. 1955. L1, 1012.

  107. SP to AP, 29 Jan. 1956. L1, 1093.

  108. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  109. SP to Jon Rosenthal, 14 Dec. 1955. L1, 1055–56.

  110. SP to AP, 14 Oct. (#2) 1955. L1, 982.

  111. SP to Elinor Friedman, 27 Oct. 1955. L1, 994.

  112. Jane Baltzell Kopp email to Wyatt-Brown, 21 Mar. 2003. Quoted in Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Neither Priest nor Poet,” Shapers of Southern History: Autobiographical Reflections, John B. Boles, ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 62–90. 90.

  113. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  114. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 1974–75. 2.11, MSS 1489, Emory.

  115. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Iko and Felicity Meshoulam, 1973. 2.22, MSS 1489, Emory.

  116. HC interview with Jean Gooder, July 2017, Cambridge, UK.

  117. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Iko and Felicity Meshoulam, 1973. 2.22, MSS 1489, Emory.

  118. Ibid.

  119. Isabel Murray Henderson email to HC, 1 Nov. 2017.

  120. Byatt attended Newnham from 1954 to 1957; Drabble from 1957 to 1960.

  121. Mira Stout, “What Possessed A. S. Byatt?,” New York Times (26 May 1991).

  122. SP to AP, 16 Jan. 1956. L1, 1081.

  123. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  124. J, 201.

  125. HC interview with Elinor Friedman Klein, Oct. 2015, South Salem, N.Y.

  126. John Creaser, “Sylvia Plath in Bartholomew Fair,” blog, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online, http://universitypublishingonline.org/​cambridge/​benjonson/​blog/​sylvia-plath-in-bartholomew-fair/​.

  127. Ibid.

  128. SP to OHP, 13 Dec. 1955. L1, 1048.

  129. SP to AP, 17 Jan. 1956. L1, 1083.

  130. SP to AP, 25 Jan. 1956. L1, 1089–90.

  131. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Dick Wertz, 1970. 4.20, MSS 1489, Emory; SP to Elinor Friedman, 12 Dec. 1955. L1, 10
40.

  132. Plath told Aurelia the hotel was in the “Oriental & Greek quarter.” (30 Dec. 1955. L1, 1068). Nat LaMar had booked it for her.

  133. SP to Mallory Wober, 23 Dec. 1955. L1, 1063.

  134. HC phone interview with Jane Baltzell Kopp, 4 Nov. 2015.

  135. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Elinor Friedman Klein, 1971–72. 2.10, MSS 1489, Emory.

  136. SP to Elinor Friedman, 10 Feb. 1956. L1, 1104.

  137. Ibid.

  138. SP to AP, 30 Dec. 1955. L1, 1069.

  139. Ibid.

  140. SP to Mallory Wober, 29 Dec. 1955. L1, 1064.

  141. SP to AP, 30 Dec. 1955. L1, 1069.

  142. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1955. L1, 1053.

  143. SP to AP, 29 Jan. 1956. L1, 1093.

  144. Ibid.

  145. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1955. L1, 1052.

  146. SP to WP, 11 Dec. 1955. L1, 1038.

  147. J, 549.

  148. SP to Mallory Wober, 1 Jan. 1956. L1, 1072.

  149. SP to Elinor Friedman, 10 Feb. 1956. L1, 1105.

  150. OHP to AP, 16 Jan. 1956. Lilly.

  151. SP to AP, 7 Jan. 1956. L1, 1074.

  152. SP, 6 Jan. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  153. Andrew Wilson, Mad Girls’ Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted (New York: Scribner, 2013), 300.

  154. Richard Sassoon, “In the Year of Love and unto Death, the Fourth—an Elegy on the Muse,” Northwest Review 5.1 (Winter 1962): 110–11. Wilson was the first biographer to discuss this story.

  155. Ibid., 116–17.

  156. Ibid., 108–109. Sassoon’s ellipses.

  157. Plath began “The Matisse Chapel” on 17 Jan. and revised the story until she had twenty-five pages that satisfied her. She sent it to The New Yorker, but it was rejected without comment that February.

  158. 13.4, Lilly.

  159. SP, 8 Jan. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6, Lilly.

  160. SP to AP, 10 Jan. 1956. L1, 1077.

  161. SP to Elinor Friedman, 6–8 Mar. 1956. L1, 1131.

  162. SP to Richard Sassoon, 6 Mar. 1956. L1, 1126.

  163. SP to AP, 25 Jan. 1956. L1, 1090.

  164. SP to AP, 29 Jan. 1956. L1, 1092.

  165. SP to AP, 17 Jan. 1956. L1, 1083.

  166. SP, 27 & 29 Jan. 1956, 1955–56 calendar. 7.6 Lilly.

  167. SP to AP, 2 Feb. 1956. L1, 1095.

  168. SP to AP, 6 Feb. 1956. L1, 1098.