Red Comet

by Heather Clark

  29. Ibid.

  30. TH, “Trial,” section 23. Add MS 88993/1/1, BL.

  31. A. Alvarez, “Beyond the Gentility Principle,” Observer (19 Feb. 1961), 28.

  32. J, 316.

  33. SP to AP, 14 Apr. 1961. L2, 605; SP to AP, 22 Apr. 1961. L2, 608.

  34. HC interview with Lorna Secker-Walker, June 2017, London.

  35. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Catherine Frankfort, 1970. 1.27, MSS 1489, Emory.

  36. HC interview with Lorna Secker-Walker, June 2017, London.

  37. SP to AP, 14 Apr. 1961. L2, 606.

  38. TH to AP and WP, 22 Apr. 1961. LTH, 183.

  39. TH to Daniel and Helga Huws, July 1961. LTH, 184.

  40. SP to AP, 8 May 1961. L2, 619.

  41. SP to AP and WP, 6 June 1961. L2, 622–24. Hughes won £100.

  42. Ruth Fainlight, “Jane and Sylvia,” Crossroads (Spring 2004): 8–19. 9.

  43. HC interview with Ruth Fainlight, May 2016, London.

  44. Ibid.

  45. See Katy Evans Bush, “The Poet Realized: An Interview with Ruth Fainlight,” Contemporary Poetry Review, http://www.cprw.com/​Bush/​fainlight.htm.

  46. HC interview with Ruth Fainlight, May 2016, London.

  47. Fainlight, “Jane and Sylvia,” 12.

  48. HC interview with Ruth Fainlight, May 2016, London.

  49. Fainlight, “Jane and Sylvia,” 9.

  50. Ibid., 12.

  51. HC interview with Suzette and Helder Macedo, May 2016, London.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Ibid.

  54. EF interview with Suzette Macedo, Oct. 1999. EFP.

  55. HC interview with Suzette and Helder Macedo, May 2016, London.

  56. Conversation with Michael Frayn, 24 Sept. 2018, Manhattan.

  57. J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Shirley Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest, and A. E. Ellis’s The Rack, which Hughes remembered Plath reading in early 1960, were also influences.

  58. Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (1955; New York: Holt, 1990), 19; 18; 6.

  59. Suzette Macedo email to HC, 20 May 2016.

  60. HC interview with Ruth Fainlight, May 2016, London.

  61. Ibid.

  62. HC interview with Suzette and Helder Macedo, May 2016, London.

  63. Most of the images were taken from the 6 June 1960 issue of Life, some from the 4 June and 7 May issues of The New Yorker.

  64. Robin Peel, Writing Back: Sylvia Plath and Cold War Politics (Vancouver: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 2002), 59. See Writing Back for an extended discussion of this collage.

  65. BJ, 80.

  66. For example, David Holbrook, quoted in Peel, Writing Back, 55.

  67. There are three incomplete drafts of the novel in Box 4, SPC, Smith. The draft in Folder 2 is forty-three pages; the draft in Folder 3 is eighty-nine pages; the draft in Folder 4 is seventeen pages. The later draft is in Folders 5–24.

  68. SP to Brian Cox, 17 June 1961. L2, 625.

  69. See Peter K. Steinberg, “ ‘What’s Been Happening in a Lot of American Poetry’: Sylvia Plath as Editor and Reviewer,” in Gail Crowther and Peter K. Steinberg, These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (Croydon, UK: Fonthill, 2017), 126–43, for a detailed exploration of this assignment.

  70. They wrote of the “notable American emphasis” in their Critical Quarterly Supplement in 1964. Fran Baker, presentation on Plath and Critical Quarterly, Manchester University, “Archival Afterlives” conference, 28 June 2017.

  71. “Private Ground” and “I Am Vertical” appeared in Critical Quarterly 3 (Summer 1961). “Zoo Keeper’s Wife,” “You’re,” “Small Hours” (“Barren Woman”), “Parliament Hill Fields,” “Whitsun,” and “Leaving Early” appeared in The London Magazine (Aug. 1961).

  72. Plath said he was uninvited, yet she wrote to him on 26 Apr. 1961, “Ted and I await your arrival—at any time of the day or night and for one meal or a dozen—with great joy.” L2, 613.

  73. SP to AP, 28 May 1961. L2, 621.

  74. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Leonard Baskin, 1971. 1.7, MSS 1489, Emory.

  75. Leonard Baskin to TH, 28 June 1961. LTH, 186–87.

  76. TH to Leonard Baskin, Aug. 1961. LTH, 186–87.

  77. SP to AP, 16 Apr. 1962. L2, 758.

  78. SP to Leonard Baskin, 16 Apr. 1962. L2, 760.

  79. SP to AP, 6 June 1961. L2, 623.

  80. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Anthony Thwaite, 1973. 4.17, MSS 1489, Emory.

  81. Sylvia Plath, The Living Poet. BBC Third Programme. Recorded on 5 June 1961; broadcast on 8 July 1961. The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath, British Library/National Sound Archives/BBC Audio Compilation (2010).

  82. SP to WP, 27 June 1961. L2, 627.

  83. SP and TH to Bill and Dido Merwin, 30 July 1961. L2, 632.

  84. SP to WP, 27 June 1961. L2, 628.

  85. SP to AP, 6 & 10 July 1961. L2, 630–31.

  86. Anne Stevenson, Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath (London: Penguin, 1989; 1998), 339.

  87. Her brother-in-law had been put to death during the Spanish Civil War.

  88. SP to AP, 10 July 1961. L2, 631.

  89. Frances McCullough, notes on visit with Ted and Carol Hughes, Devon, c. 7 July 1974. 6.35, Francis McCullough Papers, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland.

  90. TH to Daniel and Helga Huws, July 1961. LTH, 184.

  91. TH and SP to Bill and Dido Merwin, 30 July 1961. L2, 632. Hughes’s portion of the letter is not transcribed. Original held at the Morgan Library.

  92. “Live Poetry Reading at the Mermaid Theatre, London,” Recorded on 17 July 1961. The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath. British Library/National Sound Archives/BBC Audio Compilation (2010).

  93. Jack Sweeney to Stephen and Agatha Fassett, 27 July 1961. 1.1, MS Am 3133, Houghton Library, Harvard.

  94. SP to Jack Sweeney, 22 Aug. 1961. L2, 638.

  95. Stevenson, Bitter Fame, 348.

  96. TH to Daniel and Helga Huws. LTH, 184.

  97. Steve Ely, Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire: Made in Mexborough (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 143; Edith Hughes to AP, 30 Aug. 1961. Lilly. In this letter, Edith quotes from an article about Hughes’s speech in the local newspaper.

  98. Edith Hughes to AP, 30 Aug. 1961. Lilly. Ely, Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire, 143.

  99. Ely, Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire, 143.

  100. Ibid.

  101. AP to WP and Margaret Wetzel, 21 July 1961. Lilly. AP’s ellipsis.

  102. Clarissa Roche, “Sylvia Plath: Vignettes from England,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, Edward Butscher, ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1977), 83.

  103. TH to Anne Stevenson, autumn 1986. LTH, 519.

  104. SP to Margaret Cantor, 30 Sept. 1961. L2, 654.

  105. AP to WP, 30 July 1961. Lilly.

  106. Sir Arundell, skeptical that a bank would take on two freelance writers, took their mortgage, which came to about half the price (about $4,500 after their down payment of $5,880).

  107. AP to WP, 30 July 1961. Lilly.

  108. Owen Leeming, Two of a Kind: Poets in Partnership. Interview with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. BBC Third Programme, London. Recorded 18 Jan. 1961; broadcast 31 Jan. 1961. National Sound Archives, BL. The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath. British Library/National Sound Archives/BBC Audio Compilation (2010).

  109. SP to AP and WP, 25 Aug. 1961. L2, 640.

  110. Elizabeth Sigmund and Gail Crowther, Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year’s Turning (Croydon, UK: Fonthill, 2014), 50.

  111. SP to Jack Sweeney, 22 Aug. 1961. L2, 639.

  112. SP to AP, 13 Aug. 1961. L2, 635.

  113. In the end, the Maugham committee allowed him to keep th
e prize money.

  114. J, 438.

  115. SP to AP and WP, 13 Aug. 1961. L2, 636.

  116. TH to Al Alvarez, late 1961. LTH, 190.

  117. EF interview with Ruth Fainlight, Feb. 2000. EFP.

  118. HC interview with Suzette Macedo, May 2016, London.

  119. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Suzette and Helder Macedo, 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  120. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Anthony Thwaite, 1973. 4.17, MSS 1489, Emory.

  121. SP to AP, 25 Aug. 1961. L2, 641.

  122. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 26 Aug. 1961. 1.9, MSS 980, Emory.

  26. THE LATE, GRIM HEART OF AUTUMN

  1. TH to Olwyn Hughes, 26 Aug. 1961. 1.9, MSS 980, Emory.

  2. SP to Helga Huws, 30 Oct. 1961. L2, 675.

  3. SP to AP, 4 Sept. 1961. L2, 644.

  4. Ibid., L2, 643–44.

  5. TH, notebook entry, 11 Sept. 1961. Add MS 88918/128/1, BL.

  6. SP to Howard Moss, 11 Sept. 1961. L2, 645.

  7. SP to AP, 15 Sept. 1961. L2, 648. The plank is now at Smith.

  8. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Nancy Axworthy, 1.5, MSS 1489, Emory.

  9. SP to AP, 15 Sept. 1961. L2, 649. Later, Aurelia would highlight this passage, presumably suggesting that it was not the life her daughter wanted. She also underlined another seemingly offending passage in the next letter about Plath mowing the lawn. Plath told Marcia she paid Nancy a little over $2 for her week’s work. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 7 Dec. 1961. L2, 693.

  10. TH, “Notes on the Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath’s Poems,” TriQuarterly 7 (Fall 1966): 81–88. 86.

  11. JP, 110–11.

  12. CPTH, 1143–44.

  13. SP to Margaret Cantor, 30 Sept. 1961. L2, 654.

  14. SP to AP, 26–30 Oct. 1961. L2, 672.

  15. SP to Peter Davison, 30 Sept. 1961. L2, 656.

  16. See Peter K. Steinberg’s blog post, “Sylvia Plath Collections: William Heinemann Ltd. Archives,” 11 Feb. 2014, https://sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com/​2014/​02/​sylvia-plath-collections-william.html. The Plath contractual papers in the Heinemann collection are closed to researchers, but Steinberg was allowed limited access to this material when he was editing Plath’s letters.

  17. Peter K. Steinberg and Gail Crowther report the contents of the new proposed poetry collection, which appear on a torn piece of paper in Plath’s Smith archive: “Magi,” “Small Hours,” “Morning Song,” “Face Lift,” “Parliament Hill Fields,” “A Life,” “Candles,” “Sleep in the Mojave Desert,” “The Hanging Man,” “You’re,” “Tulips,” “Widow,” “Insomniac,” and “The Rival.” She added “The Surgeon at 2 a.m.” and “The Moon and the Yew Tree.” Gail Crowther and Peter K. Steinberg, These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (Croydon, UK: Fonthill, 2017), 35–36.

  18. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Suzette Macedo, 1972. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  19. HC interview with Suzette and Helder Macedo, May 2016, London.

  20. SP to Ruth Fainlight, 11 Sept. 1961. L2, 647.

  21. SP to Helga Huws, 30 Oct. 1961. L2, 673–75.

  22. SP to Judith Jones, 12 Dec. 1961. L2, 702.

  23. SP to Howard Moss, 18 Dec. 1961. L2, 706.

  24. SP to Kathleen and Marvin Kane, 22 June 1962. L2, 788.

  25. Olwyn Hughes to Clarissa Roche, 25 Sept. 1987. William Sigmund Papers, Smith.

  26. SP to AP, 13 Oct. 1961. L2, 666.

  27. Sylvia Crawford had three daughters. SP to Helga Huws, 30 Oct. 1961. L2, 674.

  28. SP to AP, 29 Dec. (#2) 1961. L2, 709.

  29. SP to Helga Huws, 30 Oct. 1961. L2, 674.

  30. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 7 Dec. 1961. L2, 693–94.

  31. SP to Helga Huws, 30 Oct. 1961. L2, 674.

  32. SP to Ruth Fainlight, 11 Sept. 1961. L2, 647.

  33. Kenneth Neville-Davies email to HC, 24 Oct. 2016.

  34. SP to Helga Huws, 30 Oct. 1961. L2, 674.

  35. SP to AP, 22 Oct. 1961. L2, 669.

  36. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 7 Dec. 1961. L2, 694.

  37. SP to AP, 22 Oct. 1961. L2, 669.

  38. SP to AP, 5 Nov. 1961. L2, 678.

  39. One review usually comprised about ten books.

  40. AP to SP, 26–30 Oct. 1961. L2, 672.

  41. SP to AP, 5 Nov. 1961. L2, 677.

  42. SP to Ruth Fainlight, 6 Oct. 1961. L2, 659.

  43. See SP to AP, 5 Nov. 1961. L2, 676–78. Her poem had won the Guinness Poetry Competition first prize at the Cheltenham Festival of Art and Literature. The judges for this prize were Elizabeth Jennings, Laurie Lee, and Anthony Thwaite.

  44. Plath sold 130 pages for $280.

  45. SP to AP, 5 Nov. 1961. L2, 676.

  46. SP to AP, 9 Nov. 1961. L2, 681.

  47. Ibid., L2, 680–81.

  48. SP to Gerald and Joan Hughes, 6 Dec. 1961. L2, 690.

  49. SP to AP, 9 Nov. 1961. L2, 680.

  50. Ruth Hill to SP, 6 Nov. 1961. 5.46, SPC, Smith.

  51. SP to AP, 20 Nov. 1961. L2, 687.

  52. SP to AP, 5 Nov. 1961. L2, 677.

  53. SP to AP, 9 Nov. 1961. L2, 681.

  54. SP to Marion Freeman, 26 Oct. 1961. L2, 670.

  55. SP to AP, 7 Dec. 1961. L2, 698.

  56. SP to AP, 22 Oct. 1961. L2, 668.

  57. 15.20, SPC, Smith.

  58. Helena Annan to SP, 19 Jan. 1962. 17.37, SPC, Smith.

  59. TH to AP and WP, early Dec. 1960. LTH, 172.

  60. Harriet Rosenstein interview with William Sterling, 1972. 4.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  61. SP to James Michie, 14 Nov. 1961. L2, 683–85.

  62. SP to AP, 29 Dec. 1961. L2, 706.

  63. SP to AP, 7 Dec. 1961. L2, 697.

  64. Ibid., L2, 696–99.

  65. SP to AP, 26–30 Oct. 1961. L2, 672.

  66. See G. S. Fraser, “American Poetry,” Times Literary Supplement (8 Dec. 1961), 881.

  67. TH to Theodore Roethke, early Dec. 1961. Roethke Papers, 8.4, University of Washington.

  68. This doll’s crib is now held at SPC, Smith.

  69. SP to AP, 29 Dec. (#1) 1961. L2, 706–708.

  70. SP to AP, 29 Dec. (#2) 1961. L2, 710.

  27. MOTHERS

  1. SP to AP, 18–20 Jan. 1962. L2, 713.

  2. SP to AP, 12 Jan. 1962. L2, 711.

  3. J, 645.

  4. J, 646–47.

  5. SP to AP, 18–20 Jan. 1962. L2, 714.

  6. J, 647.

  7. Hughes was deeply troubled by this passage, and he kept it out of Plath’s abridged journals when they were published.

  8. TH to Esther and Leonard Baskin, late Jan. 1962. LTH, 194.

  9. J, 647.

  10. SP to AP, 18–20 Jan. 1962. L2, 714.

  11. TH to Esther and Leonard Baskin, late Jan. 1962. LTH, 194.

  12. SP, “Fever” sequence. 9.96, SPC, Smith.

  13. J, 648.

  14. SP to AP, 24–27 Jan. 1962. L2, 717.

  15. SP to Dorothy Benotti, 31 Jan. 1962. L2, 722.

  16. SP to AP, 7 Feb. 1962. L2, 727.

  17. SP to AP, 13 Feb. 1962. L2, 729.

  18. SP to Dr. Ruth Beuscher, 27 Mar. 1962. L2, 748.

  19. SP to AP, 13 Feb. 1962. L2, 730.

  20. Ibid., L2, 729.

  21. SP to Mary Louise Vincent Black, 30 Jan. 1962. L2, 718.

  22. SP to AP, 31 Jan. 1962. L2, 720.

  23. SP to AP, 18–20 Jan. 1962. L2, 715.

  24. AP to Miriam Baggett, 15 May 1962. 29.2, SPC, Smith.

  25. SP to AP, 4 Mar. 1962. L2, 735.

  26. HC interview with David Compton, May 2016, Bowdoinham, Maine.

>   27. Harriet Rosenstein interview with David Compton, 1973. 1.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  28. SP to AP, 7 Feb. 1962. L2, 728.

  29. SP to Olive Eaton, 1 Feb. 1962. L2, 725.

  30. SP to AP, 13 Feb. 1962. L2, 730.

  31. SP to AP, 4 Mar. 1962. L2, 734.

  32. SP to AP, 13 Feb. 1962. L2, 731.

  33. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1962. L2, 731.

  34. SP to AP, 12 Mar. 1962. L2, 739.

  35. SP to AP, 24 Feb. 1962. L2, 733.

  36. SP to AP, 7 Feb. 1962. L2, 728.

  37. SP to Ann Davidow-Goodman and Leo Goodman, 28 Mar. 1962. L2, 749.

  38. SP to Paul and Clarissa Roche, 12 Mar. 1962. L2, 740–41.

  39. SP to Helga Huws, 29 Mar. 1962. L2, 752.

  40. SP to AP, 27 Mar. 1962. L2, 746.

  41. SP to Dr. Ruth Beuscher, 27 Mar. 1962. L2, 748.

  42. Dr. Ruth Beuscher to SP, 17 Sept. 1962. 17.24, SPC, Smith.

  43. J, 655; 662.

  44. J, 633.

  45. EF interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, Sept. 1999. EFP.

  46. HC interview with David Compton, May 2016, Bowdoinham, Maine.

  47. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Winifred Davies, 8 Aug. 1970. Courtesy of Kenneth Neville-Davies.

  48. Kenneth Neville-Davies email to Peter K. Steinberg, 5 Feb. 2016. Quoted with permission of Steinberg and Neville-Davies. Mrs. Hamilton, Plath’s neighbor, was Winifred Davies’s maternal aunt, who had helped get her the job of midwife in North Tawton. The Davieses were even distantly related to Elizabeth Compton.

  49. HC interview with David Compton, May 2016, Bowdoinham, Maine.

  50. J, 636.

  51. J, 634.

  52. Clarissa Roche, “Sylvia Plath: Vignettes from England,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, Edward Butscher, ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1977), 88–89.

  53. J, 644.

  54. J, 631.

  55. J, 637.