Sue and her sweet boyfriend, Corin, took me out to a movie the other night, and I realized what I have missed most, apart from the peace to write, is company—doing things with other people.
Thank goodness, I got out of Devon in time. I would have been buried forever under this record 20-foot snowfall with no way to dig myself out. Nancy is feeding the cats; I sent her a $15 cheque.
… I was very lucky in calling the Home Help Service, which sends out cleaners to sick or old people, and got a wonderful vigorous woman, named Mrs. Vigors (!), who had the place gleaming in about two hours. I got a terrific lift from it and hope I can persuade her to come to me on her own Saturdays after I no longer qualify as a person in need. It is very hard to get good cleaners here, and she has two young girls and is very good with the babies.
Do give my best love to Dot and Joe and Warren and Margaret. I hope to write in a week or so saying I have got this au pair—she left some of her stuff and seemed a very nice, cheerful girl whom the children liked.
Love to all,
Sivvy
Letter written by Patty Goodall to my friend Mrs. William Norton. She knew it would reassure me.
JANUARY 19, 1963
Dear Aunt Mildred,
Having a pretty good idea how anxious you and Mrs. Plath must be about Sylvia (I know my mother would feel the same way about me!), I dashed off a note to her [Sylvia] immediately, suggesting that I drop in on her Saturday, January 19. I did mention that I had heard from you … I hid my mission further by stating that John would be taking Susie to the Zoo in nearby Regent’s Park while she and I visited and that I felt in great need to chat with someone who was not only American also, but who knew my family.
It was a bitter cold day, but the bright smile and eager American expression that greeted us as Sylvia opened the door made the visit already worth while. John had seriously intended continuing on to the Park, but Sylvia urged him strongly to stay and for the next hour or so we sat and drank tea and NEVER STOPPED TALKING! She seemed well, as did the children, but apparently they had had a bad bout with the flu. There is a lot of this about, and it does bring with it very high fevers. At one point all three were down at once, but, as Sylvia says, her doctor is an absolute Saint, giving them every attention and care. She feels very tied down with two children and no one to look after them when she needs to go out, but she is looking for a foreign girl to live in …
Frieda is a darling little girl with the biggest blue eyes I have ever seen. Nicholas was in his playpen, adding to the conversation occasionally with a deep chuckle. Sylvia says he possesses a wonderfully happy disposition, and he certainly seemed quite content to chuckle away while our Susie patted him on the head and stole his biscuit.
Saturday was the dreariest of winter days, yet inside her flat life seemed warm and cheery … Of course, we never finished our conversation, but I do hope to see more of her soon. John is off to the States in a week or so for a short business trip, and I am hoping Sylvia will come to dinner one night to keep me company. She hopes to have her phone installed soon, but whether she will or not is anyone’s guess. Things move slowly in England! However, there is always the mail, and I really would love to see more of her.
I just as soon Sylvia didn’t know that I reported back to you about our visit. I would rather she think that I came simply because I needed and wanted to meet her—certainly our future meetings will be because she is interesting, fun, and full of charm.
Sylvia is still continuing with her writing and seems to recently have had some success in publishing a book. Whether this is intended to be passed on, I don’t know, but will leave it up to you whether to tell Mrs. Plath. Perhaps she knows. Sylvia seemed shy about the subject, saying it was being published under an assumed name—I didn’t question her further …
I must dash in order to get news to you right away. I am so pleased you wrote me, and, incidentally, pleased to have added another Aunt and Uncle.
Love,
Patty
FEBRUARY 4, 1963
Dear Mother,
Thanks so much for your letters. I got a sweet letter from Dotty and a lovely hood and mittens for Nick from Warren and Margaret. I just haven’t written anybody because I have been feeling a bit grim—the upheaval over, I am seeing the finality of it all, and being catapulted from the cowlike happiness of maternity into loneliness and grim problems is no fun. I got a sweet letter from the Nortons and an absolutely wonderful, understanding one from Betty Aldrich. Marty Plumer is coming over at the end of March, which should be cheering …
I have absolutely no desire ever to return to America. Not now, anyway. I have my beautiful country house, the car, and London is the one city of the world I’d like to live in with its fine doctors, nice neighbors, parks, theatres and the BBC. There is nothing like the BBC in America—over there they do not publish my stuff as they do here, my poems and novel. I have done a commissioned article for Punch on my schooldays and have a chance for three weeks in May to be on the BBC Critics program at about $150 a week, a fantastic break I hope I can make good on. Each critic sees the same play, art show, book, radio broadcast each week and discusses it. I am hoping it will finish furnishing this place, and I can go to [Devon] right after. Ask Marty for a copy of the details of the two places and the rent, and maybe you could circulate them among your professor friends, too.
I appreciate your desire to see Frieda, but if you can imagine the emotional upset she has been through in losing her father and moving, you will see what an incredible idea it is to take her away by jet to America. I am her one security and to uproot her would be thoughtless and cruel, however sweetly you treated her at the other end. I could never afford to live in America—I get the best of doctors’ care here perfectly free, and with children this is a great blessing. Also, Ted sees the children once a week and this makes him more responsible about our allowance … I shall simply have to fight it out on my own over here. Maybe someday I can manage holidays in Europe with the children … The children need me most right now, and so I shall try to go on for the next few years writing mornings, being with them afternoons and seeing friends or studying and reading evenings.
My German “au pair” is food-fussy and boy-gaga, but I am doing my best to discipline her. She does give me some peace mornings and a few free evenings, but I’ll have to think up something new for the country as these girls don’t want to be so far away from London.
Sylvia, her children, and her mother in Devon, July 1962
I am going to start seeing a woman doctor, free on the National Health, to whom I’ve been referred by my very good local doctor, which should help me weather this difficult time. Give my love to all.
Sivvy
On February 12, 1963, my sister received a cablegram from Ted, telling us “Sylvia died yesterday” and giving details of the time and place of the funeral service.
Her physical energies had been depleted by illness, anxiety and overwork, and although she had for so long managed to be gallant and equal to the life-experience, some darker day than usual had temporarily made it seem impossible to pursue.
* On December 11, 1962, as I was chatting with my sister in the kitchen of her home, the phone rang. Sylvia called us, her voice musical and lilting. She told us she and the children were well and that she was looking forward to moving to London within a day or two.
List of Poems
Admonition
Apparel for April
Battle-Scene from the Comic Opera Fantasy: The Seafarer
Channel Crossing
Dialogue en Route (fragment)
Doom of Exiles
Epitaph for Fire and Flower
Gold leaves shiver
Gold mouths cry … (frag.)
I Thought that I Could Not Be Hurt
Lady and the Earthenware Head, The
Metamorphosis
Ode for Ted
Parallax
Pursuit
Song
Sonnet
r /> Temper of Time
To Ariadne
Verbal Calisthenics
Winter Words
You ask me why I spend my life writing
Index of First Lines
All right, let’s say you could take a skull and break it
An ill wind is stalking
Fired in sanguine clay, the model head
From under crunch of my man’s foot
Gold leaves shiver
Haunched like a faun, he hooed
Hills sport tweed
If only something exciting would happen! (frag.)
If you dissect a bird
In the pale prologue
I thought that I could not be hurt
It beguiles—
Major faults in granite
My love for you is more
Now we, returning from the vaulted dome
Oh, fury equalled only by the shrieking wind
On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul
Through fen and farmland walking
You might as well string up
About the Author
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus (1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her Collected Poems, which contains her poetry written from 1956 until her death, was published in 1981 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Copyright
This ebook edition published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
LETTERS HOME. © 1975 The Estate of Aurelia Plath. All rights reserved. No part of this book, including the photographs may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The right of Sylvia Plath to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26634–0
Sylvia Plath, Letters Home
(Series: # )
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