Red Comet

by Heather Clark

  47. Suzette Macedo to Harriet Rosenstein, c. 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  48. HC interview with Suzette and Helder Macedo, May 2016, London. Hughes published the poem without the dedication in Plath’s 1981 Collected Poems, though Frieda Hughes restored it in her later edition of Ariel.

  49. SP to AP, 7 Nov. 1962. L2, 898–99.

  50. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Helder Macedo, 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  51. Jillian Becker to Harriet Rosenstein, 19 Feb. 1974. 1.8, MSS 1489, Emory.

  52. SP to AP, 19 Nov. 1962. L2, 905.

  53. Plath’s copy of The Collected Plays of W. B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1953) is at SPC, Smith. The quote she underlined is on p. 347.

  54. Alvarez, Savage God, 43.

  55. Anne Stevenson, interview notes with Suzette Macedo, 10 June 1987. 2.24, Houghton Mifflin Papers, Smith.

  56. Alvarez, Savage God, 32.

  57. See William Wooten, “ ‘That Alchemical Power’: The Literary Relationship of A. Alvarez and Sylvia Plath,” Cambridge Quarterly (Sept. 2010): 217–36. 224.

  58. Alvarez, Savage God, 32–33.

  59. Wooten, “That Alchemical Power,” 227.

  60. Alvarez, Savage God, 36–37.

  61. SP to AP, 7 Nov. 1962. L2, 897–99.

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

  63. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Helder Macedo, 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  64. SP, “New Poems.” Alvarez papers, Add MS 88589/8, BL.

  65. Ronald Hayman, The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1991), 189. The dedication appears in an early typescript. 10.135, SPC, Smith.

  66. Carl Rollyson, American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013), 219.

  67. Alvarez, Where Did It All Go Right?, 315.

  68. John Gale, “Thalidomide Baby Fund Launched,” Observer (21 Oct. 1962), 3; Dr. Abraham Marcus, “New Tests Show Drug Danger,” Observer (14 Oct. 1962), 12.

  69. Mark Wormald email to HC, 16 Nov. 2017.

  70. HC interview with Daniel Huws, May 2016, London. Huws remained close to Luke Myers well into the late 1990s, as correspondence in the British Library shows.

  71. Luke Myers to EF, 25 Feb. 2001. EFP.

  72. HC interview with Daniel Huws, May 2016, London.

  73. HC interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, May 2016, Cornwall.

  74. HC interview with Al Alvarez, May 2016, London.

  75. Al Alvarez to Harriet Rosenstein, 20 June 1974. 1.2, MSS 1489, Emory.

  76. Will Wooten is the only scholar to have done significant research on Plath and Alvarez.

  77. Hughes never sent the letter. 55.52, MSS 644, Emory.

  78. TH to Al Alvarez, n.d., mid-to-late Nov. 1971. Add MS 88593/1, BL. This was Hughes’s second letter to Alvarez on the matter.

  79. HC interview with Daniel Huws, May 2016, London.

  80. TH to Al Alvarez, Nov. 1971. LTH, 322; 325.

  81. TH to Al Alvarez, mid-to-late Nov. 1971. Add MS 88593/1, BL.

  82. TH to Al Alvarez, Nov. 1971. LTH, 324.

  83. Al Alvarez to Harriet Rosenstein, 20 June 1974. 1.2, MSS 1489, Emory.

  84. Al Alvarez to TH, 15 Nov. 1971. Add MS 88593/1, BL.

  85. “Sylvia Plath” (letters from Ted Hughes and Al Alvarez), Observer (7 Nov. 1971).

  86. TH to Al Alvarez, 22 Oct. 1977. Add MS 88593/1, BL.

  87. Al Alvarez, “Ted, Sylvia and Me,” Guardian (4 Jan. 2004): Review 1–2.

  88. Add MS 88918/1/2-8, BL.

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

  90. Olwyn Hughes to Al Alvarez, 24 Oct. 1972. Add MS 88603, BL.

  91. Al Alvarez to Olwyn Hughes, 25 Oct. 1972. Add MS 88603, BL.

  92. Olwyn Hughes to Al Alvarez, c. Oct. 1972. Add MS 88603, BL.

  93. This letter is not in the British Library, but Alvarez’s response indicates its content.

  94. Al Alvarez to Olwyn Hughes, 10 June 1988. Add MS 88603, BL.

  95. Olwyn Hughes to Al Alvarez, 9 June 1988. (The letter was written in response to Alvarez’s 10 June 1988 letter. Assuming Alvarez’s date is correct, it is misdated.) Add MS 88603, BL.

  96. EF, draft of Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet, p. 191. EFP.

  97. SP to Bill Merwin, 8 Nov. 1962. L2, 901.

  98. TH to Bill Merwin, late fall 1962. 1.22, MSS 866, Emory.

  99. Plath’s copy of The Art of Loving is held as part of the Ted Hughes archive at Emory. These highlighted passages appear on pages 99, 112, and 126.

  100. In her 4 Feb. 1963 letter, Plath told Beuscher she practiced these exercises. L2, 968.

  101. In a letter to Olive Prouty dated 2 Nov., Plath wrote, “My phone is in: the number is NORTH TAWTON 447.” L2, 895.

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

  103. 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; 84.

  104. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  105. Suzette Macedo to Harriet Rosenstein, c. 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  106. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  107. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, 1973. 4.10, MSS 1489, Emory.

  108. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  109. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, 1973. 4.10, MSS 1489, Emory.

  110. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  111. HC interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, May 2016, Cornwall; Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  112. SP to AP, 19 Nov. 1962. L2, 906.

  113. SP to Dorothy Benotti, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 930–31.

  114. SP to OHP, 20 Nov. 1962. L2, 912.

  115. Peter Davison to SP, 20 Nov. 1962. 17.22.1, SPC, Smith.

  116. SP to AP, 19 Nov. 1962. L2, 904.

  117. SP to W. Roger Smith, 19 Nov. 1962. L2, 908.

  118. SP to Leonie Cohn, 20 Nov. 1962. L2, 909.

  119. SP to Stevie Smith, 19 Nov. 1962. L2, 907–908.

  120. Stevie Smith to SP, 22 Nov. 1962. 17.46, SPC, Smith.

  121. SP to Ruth Fainlight, 20 Nov. 1962. L2, 915.

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

  123. SP to Harriet Cooke, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 925. The Cookes had visited the Hugheses in London in 1960, and SP had corresponded with Harriet about her plan to live in Ireland.

  124. SP to AP, 22 Nov. 1962. L2, 918.

  125. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Bessie Stoneman, 1970. (Filed under John Avery.) 1.4, MSS 1489, Emory.

  126. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, 1975. 4.10, MSS 1489, Emory.

  127. Ibid.

  128. SP to AP, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 923.

  129. SP to AP, 22 Nov. 1962. L2, 920. Susan would write to Plath a week before her suicide that she had wanted to meet her “for at least three years, but circumstances were against.” Susan Alliston Moore to SP, 4 Feb. 1963. SPC, Smith.

  130. SP to AP, 22 Nov. 1962. L2, 919–20.

  131. SP to AP, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 923.

  132. SP to Harriet Cooke, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 925.

  133. TH to Olwyn Hughes, Sept. 1962. LTH, 208.

  134. SP to AP, 22 Nov. 1962. L2, 919.

  135. SP to AP, 7 Nov. 1962. L2, 898.

  136. OHP to SP, 27 Nov. 1962. 17.43, SPC, Smith.


  137. SP to Daniel and Helga Huws, 26 Dec. 1962. L2, 944.

  138. In the 1970s, Aurelia would redact all references to this plan in black ink, worried that she had been involved in a minor tax evasion.

  139. SP to AP, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 922.

  140. AP to SP, 4 Dec. 1962. 17.41, SPC, Smith.

  141. AP to SP, 8 Dec. 1962. 17.41, SPC, Smith.

  142. OHP to SP, 27 Nov. 1962. 17.43, SPC, Smith. Plath had already informed Aurelia she would dedicate her second book of poems to Prouty if it were ever published in America.

  143. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 928–29.

  144. AP to SP, 4 Dec. 1962. 17.41, SPC, Smith.

  145. AP to SP, 8 Dec. 1962. 17.41, SPC, Smith.

  146. AP to SP, 4 Dec. 1962. 17.41, SPC, Smith.

  147. AP to SP, 8 Dec. 1962. 17.41, SPC, Smith. Aurelia writes, “Did you know that Robert Graves was considered for the Nobel prize this year—wish he had received it!!!”

  148. Ibid.

  149. SP to AP, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 922.

  150. According to her 1962 Letts Royal Office Tablet Diary (19.2, SPC. Smith), Plath had tea with Gilbert and Marian Foster on 30 Sept., 25 Nov., and 2 Dec. Gilbert wrote poetry and earned a first-class BA in history at Trinity College Dublin as a mature student.

  151. Winifred Davies to AP, 5 Dec. 1962. Lilly.

  152. SP to AP, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 922.

  153. SP to OHP, 20 Nov. 1962. L2, 913.

  154. SP to Harriet Cooke, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 924–25.

  155. Judith Kroll, Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath (New York: Harper & Row, 1976; Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2007), 69; 236.

  156. Nathaniel Tarn, 12 Mar. 1963, diary notes. M1132, Nathaniel Tarn Papers, Stanford.

  157. HC interview with Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, May 2016, Cornwall.

  158. Olwyn Hughes to Al Alvarez, 9 June 1988. This is misdated; it was probably 10 June. Add MS 88603, BL.

  159. Harriet Rosenstein, notes on Fran McCullough interview, 1973–75. 2.20, MSS 1489, Emory.

  160. JP, 11.

  161. TH interview with Drue Heinz, “The Art of Poetry, LXXI,” Paris Review 134 (1995), in The Paris Review Interviews, III (London: Picador, 2008), 56–92.

  162. SP to Michael Carey, 21 Nov. 1962. L2, 917.

  163. SP to Michael Carey, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 926.

  164. Plath says the trip lasted five days, although her 1962 Letts Royal Office Tablet Diary (19.2, SPC, Smith) suggests that it was only three.

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

  166. Ibid. Hughes later wrote in his November 1979 journal about kissing Dido after she declared her attraction to him. Jonathan Bate, Ted Hughes, 401.

  167. TH, “Soho Square.” Add MS 88918/1/6, BL.

  33. YEATS’S HOUSE

  1. Plath used Douglas Cleverdon’s name as a reference for applying for a “priority phone” for her freelance work. SP to Douglas Cleverdon, 16 Dec. 1962. L2, 938.

  2. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 927–29.

  3. SP to Dorothy Benotti, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 931.

  4. I am grateful to Linda Johnson for showing me around 23 Fitzroy Road on 6 July 2017 and for explaining the floors’ former layout. The elegant townhouse has been beautifully renovated, but the footprint of Plath’s top floor, with its three bedrooms, is much as it was in 1962.

  5. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 929.

  6. SP to AP, 26 Dec. 1962. L2, 941.

  7. Linda Johnson told me there were three large sycamore trees in the back garden that dated from Plath’s time. They have since been cut down.

  8. Suzette Macedo to Harriet Rosenstein, c. 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  9. SP to AP, 21 Dec. 1962. L2, 941.

  10. Elizabeth Alexander to SP, 8 Dec. 1962; SP to Elizabeth Alexander, 10 Dec. 1962. 17.49, SPC, Smith.

  11. SP, 18 Dec. 1962. 1962 Letts Royal Office Tablet Diary. 19.2, SPC, Smith.

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

  13. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 928.

  14. Catherine lived at 18 Chalcot Crescent and Lorna at 5 Chalcot Square. Lorna Secker-Walker would eventually become a professor of medicine at the Royal Free Hospital. According to Plath’s 1962 Letts Royal Office Tablet Diary (19.2, SPC, Smith), she had tea with Catherine on 20 Dec. and tea with Lorna on 23 Dec.

  15. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Lorna and David Secker-Walker, 1970. 4.7, MSS 1489, Emory.

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

  17. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Lorna and David Secker-Walker, 1970. 4.7, MSS 1489, Emory.

  18. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Suzette Macedo, 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  19. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Lorna and David Secker-Walker, 1970. 4.7, MSS 1489, Emory.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

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

  23. SP to AP, 29 Nov. 1962. L2, 923.

  24. Kenneth Neville-Davies (who went by the name Garnett as a young man) remembers that he came on the evening of 23 Dec.; Plath also notes that he came on 30 and 31 Dec.

  25. Douglas Cleverdon to SP, 11 & 20 Dec. 1962. SPC, 17.25, Smith.

  26. SP, “New Poems,” 13 Dec. 1962. 1.16, SPC, Smith. Plath’s commentary and copies of “Letter in November,” “The Bee Meeting,” “The Arrival of the Bee Box,” and “Wintering” are in the Al Alvarez Papers at the British Library.

  27. Dorothy Barker, internal memo, 18 Jan. 1963. BBC Written Archives. Quoted in Peter K. Steinberg and Gail Crowther, “These Ghostly Archives,” Plath Profiles 2 (Summer 2009): 183–207. 196.

  28. SP to AP, 14 Dec. 1962. L2, 928.

  29. SP to AP, 21 Dec. 1962. L2, 940.

  30. A. Alvarez, The Savage God: A Study of Suicide (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971; New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 46–48.

  31. A. Alvarez, Where Did It All Go Right? (London: Richard Cohen Books, 1999), 208–209.

  32. Ted said he invited her to the Beacon with the children, but she declined. HC interview with Suzette Macedo, May 2016, London.

  33. Suzette Macedo email to HC, 30 Sept. 2016.

  34. SP to AP, 26 Dec. 1962. L2, 943.

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

  36. Suzette Macedo to Harriet Rosenstein, c. 1973. 2.18, MSS 1489, Emory.

  37. Anne Stevenson interview with Suzette Macedo, 10 June 1987. 2.24, Houghton Mifflin Papers, Smith.

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

  39. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Catherine Frankfort, 1970–71. 1.27, MSS 1489, Emory.

  40. Jillian Becker to Harriet Rosenstein, 17 Apr. 1976. Provided to HC by Jillian Becker.

  41. Clarissa Roche, who was impressed by Plath’s “smart” kitchen and “gadgetry,” remembered that “even for an American she was living reasonably well” in Yeats’s flat. She felt it “a gross exaggeration to assume she was oppressed by poverty the last weeks of her life.” “Sylvia Plath: Vignettes from England,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, Edward Butscher, ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1977), 92.

  42. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Clarissa Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  43. HC interview with Daniel Huws, May 2016, London.

  44. SP to Daniel and Helga Huws, 26 Dec. 1962. L2, 944.

  45. SP to AP, 2 Jan. 1963. L2, 948.

  46. Ibid., L2, 948–49.

  47. JP, 127.

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

  49. JP, 131.

  50. SP to Charles Osborne, 9 Jan. 1963. L2, 955.

  51. Linda Gates, “
Sylvia Plath and I,” Plath Profiles 5 (Fall 2012): 106–108, 108.

  52. It would not be published until it appeared in JP.

  53. JP, 131.

  54. Trevor Thomas, “Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters,” 1989. 1.6, MSS 1318, Emory. According to Linda Johnson, there was also a separate basement flat at the time, which Thomas would not have had access to. She had once rented the basement flat herself, and assumed there was a third tenant in the building in 1962, though neither Plath nor Thomas mentioned another tenant. HC interview with Linda Johnson, current occupant of 23 Fitzroy Road, July 2017, London.

  55. See Christopher Bissell and Avi Boukli, “How the Last Man to See Sylvia Plath Alive Was Punished for His Quiet Homosexuality,” 21 February 2017, www.theconversation.com.

  56. “Frozen Fog Was Cause of ‘Worst Power Crisis,’ ” Observer (27 Jan. 1963), 3.

  57. Trevor Thomas, “Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters.” 1.6, MSS 1318, Emory.

  58. JP, 133.

  59. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Paul Roche, 1973. 3.14, MSS 1489, Emory.

  60. Roche, “Sylvia Plath: Vignettes from England,” 92–93.

  61. Henry Rago to SP, 27 Dec. 1962. 17.42, SPC. Smith; Tony Dyson to SP, 8 Jan. 1963. 17.27, SPC, Smith.

  62. SP to Paul and Clarissa Roche, c. 9 Jan. 1963. L2, 956.

  63. SP to AP, 2 Jan. 1963. L2, 949.

  64. SP to Marcia Brown Plumer, 2 Jan. 1963. L2, 951–52.

  65. TH to Olwyn Hughes, Dec. 1962. 1.10, MSS 980, Emory.

  66. TH to Al Alvarez, n.d., fall 1962. Add MS 88593/1, BL.

  67. SP, Lloyd’s Bank checkbook stubs, Jan. 1960–Jan. 1963. 19.5, SPC, Smith.

  68. Nathaniel Tarn, 5 Jan. 1963, diary notes. M1132, Nathaniel Tarn Papers, Stanford.

  69. Olwyn Hughes to Al Alvarez, 9 June 1988. This is misdated; it was probably 10 June. Add MS 88603, BL.

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

  71. Nathaniel Tarn, 7 Dec. 1962, diary notes. M1132, Nathaniel Tarn Papers, Stanford.

  72. Assia told Nathaniel she was sending David’s manuscript to Donald Hall in America and “hoping for the best.” Meanwhile, Penguin had offered to publish it. Nathaniel Tarn, 7 Dec. 1962, diary notes. M1132, Nathaniel Tarn Papers, Stanford.

  73. SP to AP, 16 Jan. 1963. L2, 958.