Sylvia Plath - The Journals of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath speaks for herself in this unabridged edition of her journals. She began keeping diaries and journals at the age of eleven and continued this practice until her death at the age of thirty. It is her adult journals from 1950 to 1962 that comprise this edition. The text is an exact and complete transcription of twenty-three original manuscripts in the Sylvia Plath Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. This collection of handwritten volumes and typed sheets documents Plaths student years at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge, her marriage to Ted Hughes, and two years of teaching and writing in New England. A few journal fragments from 1960 to 1962 complete the edition.

In 1981 when Smith College acquired all the manuscripts remaining in the possession of the Plath Estate in England, two of the journals in the archive were sealed by Ted Hughes until 11 February 2013. Plaths professional career as an instructor of English at Smith College, followed by a year as a writer in Boston, and her private therapy sessions with Ruth Beuscher are the focus of the two sealed journals written between August 1957 and November 1959. Both journals were unsealed by Ted Hughes shortly before his death in 1998 and are presented in their entirety for the first time in this edition.

The two bound journals that Plath wrote during the last three years of her life are not included in this publication. One of the journals disappeared, according to Ted Hughes in his foreword to Frances McCulloughs edition of the JournalsofSylviaPlath (New York: Dial Press, 1982); it is still missing. The second maroon-backed ledger, which contained entries to within three days of Plaths suicide, was destroyed by Hughes.

The goal of this new edition of Sylvia Plaths journals is to present a complete and historically accurate text. The transcription of the manuscripts at Smith College is as faithful to the authors originals as possible. Plaths final revisions are preserved and her substantive deletions and corrections are discussed in the notes. Plaths spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar, as well as her errors, have been carefully transcribed and are presented without editorial comment. In fact, there are no omissions, deletions, or corrections of Plaths words in this edition. For example, all ellipses that appear in the text were made by Sylvia Plath. Every nuance of the physical journals has been preserved, including Plaths practice of underlining certain words and passages in her journals. Original layout and page breaks, however, are not duplicated. Detailed descriptions of the physical features of the journals are contained in the notes.

Eight main journals, written between 1950 and 1959, comprise the central narrative of this edition and are arranged separately in chronological order. Fifteen journal fragments and notebooks, written between 1951 and 1962, are arranged chronologically as appendices. Since a few journals and notebooks were kept simultaneously, there is some overlap. General biographical information is presented on the appropriate half-title for each of the eight principal journals. A few editorial notes, contained within square brackets and clearly marked ed:, direct the reader to relevant journal fragments in the appendices. These are the only extraneous notes that appear within the journals. Every effort has been made in this edition to give the reader direct access to Sylvia Plaths actual words without interruption or interpretation.

Factual notes have been provided at the end of the journals and appendices in order to preserve the flow of the text. Significant places, family, friends, and professional contacts are identified at their first mention. Annotations, textual variants, and specific physical characteristics of the journals are described, particularly when this information affects the meaning of the text. Marginalia such as exclamation points and tick marks are not recorded. The presence of a note is indicated by a superscript after the term to be identified or described. Notes for each separate journal and appendix are keyed to appropriate page numbers. References to additional manuscripts at Smith College and at other institutions are included in the notes when appropriate.

An extensive index completes the publication and serves as an additional reference guide.

Karen V. Kukil

In the years before his death, Ted Hughes was working towards the publication of Sylvia Plaths unabridged Journals both in Britain and America. In 1997 he passed the responsibility for the project to his children, Frieda and Nicholas, who had already held the copyright for some time. To this end, he authorized the opening of the journals that he had previously sealed.

Frieda and Nicholas entrusted the task of editing the book to Karen Kukil, Associate Curator of Rare Books at Smith College, Massachusetts. The project continued under the guidance of Ted Hughes until his death in October 1998, and was completed in December 1999.

The Journals of SYLVIA PLATH

Sylvia Plath was born on 27 October 1932 at 2:10 p.m. in Boston, Massachusetts, to Otto and Aurelia Schober Plath. Her brother Warren was born on 27 April 1935. They lived at 24 Prince Street, Jamaica Plain, until 1936 when the family moved to 92 Johnson Avenue, Winthrop, Massachusetts, to be near Aurelia Plaths parents. Otto Plath died on 5 November 1940 from complications of diabetes. In 1942, Sylvia Plath moved to 26 Elmwood Road, Wellesley, Massachusetts, with her mother, brother, and maternal grandparents.

Sylvia Plath began writing the following journal during the summer of 1950 before leaving home for college in Northampton, Massachusetts. Some of the entries are excerpts from letters to friends. Plath matriculated with the class of 1954 at Smith College, but did not graduate until June 1955 because of the semester she missed during the fall of 1953.

Sylvia Plath

Aubade

by Louis Macneice

Having bitten on life like a sharp apple

Or, playing it like a fish, been happy,