{"product_id":"the-letters-of-sylvia-plath-vol-2-19561963-isbn-9780062740588","title":"The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2: 1956-1963","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Engaging and revealing, \u003ci\u003eThe Letters of Sylvia Plath\u003c\/i\u003e offers a captivating look into the life and inner thinking of one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.” — Paul Alexander, \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe second volume in the definitive, complete collection of the letters of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Sylvia Plath, from the early years of her marriage to Ted Hughes to the final days leading to her suicide in 1963, many never before seen.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the most talented and beloved poets, Sylvia Plath continues to fascinate and inspire the modern literary imagination. The tragedy of her untimely death at age thirty, almost fifty-five years ago, has left much unknown about her creative and personal life. In this remarkable second volume of the iconic poet and writer’s collected letters, the full range of Plath’s ambitions, talents, fears, and perspective is made visible through her own powerful words.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs engaging as they are revealing, these remarkable letters cover the years from 1957 to 1963. They detail the last six tumultuous and prolific years of her life, covering her marriage to Ted Hughes, the births of her children Frieda and Nicholas, her early success, including the publication of the classic The Bell Jar, and her ongoing struggle with depression.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe first compendium of its kind to include all of Plath’s letters from this period, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 2 offers an intimate portrait of the writing life and mind of one of the most celebrated poets in literary history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough her own uncensored letters, this landmark volume reveals:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eNever-Before-Seen Correspondence:\u003c\/b\u003e For the first time, read Plath’s harrowing, unabridged letters to her psychiatrist, Dr. Ruth Beuscher, detailing Ted Hughes’s affair and the events of her final months.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eMarriage and Infidelity:\u003c\/b\u003e A raw, firsthand account of her passionate creative partnership with Hughes, its collapse following his affair with Assia Wevill, and Plath’s resolve to divorce.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Making of a Literary Icon:\u003c\/b\u003e Follow the journey of a brilliant writer finding her voice, managing submissions for both herself and Hughes, and publishing her classic novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Bell Jar\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eMotherhood and Mental Health:\u003c\/b\u003e An intimate look at Plath’s joy in her children, Frieda and Nicholas, alongside her candid descriptions of her lifelong struggle with debilitating depression.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e | \u003cp\u003eSylvia Plath (1932–1963) was one of the writers who defined the course of twentieth-century poetry. Her vivid, daring, and complex work continues to captivate new generations of readers and writers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 2, 1956–1963\u003c\/em\u003e, we discover the art of Plath’s correspondence. Most of these materials have never before been published, and are presented here unabridged, without revision—so that she can speak directly in her own words. Refreshingly candid and offering intimate details of her personal life, Plath’s letters are playful, too, entertaining a wide range of addressees, including family, friends, and professional contacts, with inimitable wit and verve.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe letters document Plath’s extraordinary literary development and the genesis of many poems, short and long fiction, and journalism. While her endeavors to publish in a variety of genres had mixed receptions, she was never dissuaded. Through acceptance and rejection of her work, Plath strove to stay true to her creative vision. Well-read and curious, she simultaneously offers a fascinating commentary on contemporary culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeter K. Steinberg, leading Plath scholar, and Karen V. Kukil, editor of \u003cem\u003eThe Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950–1962\u003c\/em\u003e, provide comprehensive footnotes and an extensive index informed by their meticulous research. Alongside a selection of photographs and Plath’s own drawings, they masterfully contextualize what the pages disclose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis selection of later correspondence details Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, becoming major influential contemporary writers, as it happened. Her recorded experiences include early publications; teaching, committing to writing full time, and making professional acquaintances; traveling, settling in England, building a family, and buying a house; and, through a series of letters to her psychiatrist, previously unknown insight into the breakup of her marriage. Throughout, Plath’s voice is completely, uniquely her own.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“A shattering chronicle of a woman’s struggle to be both a pathbreaking artist and a domestic paragon…Together, these two volumes accentuate the wonder of all that Plath accomplished by age 30, and her poetry, fiction, journals, and letters will remain forever alive, daring, urgent, and electrifying.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In Plath’s appeals to Beuscher she is plainly desperate for help, yet the rhythms of her sentences, her bitter humor, and the flamboyant performance of her plight reveal the artist at work as much as the woman in pain.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEmily Cooke, Book Forum\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“These letters seem both a way for Plath to present herself to the world and a means of self-discovery…I found myself caught up in the emerging facets of Plath’s complex character…her strong yet fragilely put-together identity…There is, though, a certain thrill in reading along as Plath the dedicated artist hoves into view.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaphne Merkin, Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“As the marriage faltered, the masks fell away…Plath wrote honestly of her unhappiness and fear…In 14 recently uncovered letters to the psychiatrist who’d treated her since her suicide attempt in college, we see Plath at her most vulnerable. It feels almost taboo to read these, so unabashed is her pain and humiliation…But in her final letters there was a note of wild, almost unbearable optimism. Inspiration ran like a tap; poems were pouring out of her. It seemed impossible that she would not make it.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAlexandra Alter, New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The Plath we initially encounter in these letters seems very far from the person who, just a few years earlier, had attempted suicide with her mother’s sleeping pills; and perhaps even farther from the person who, a few years later, gassed herself in her London kitchen. Above all, we see Plath on the move… She comes off, most often, as a whirlwind… it’s the alertness to daily life that makes Plath’s letters most poignant. Few writers have been as intensely attentive to quotidian details as Plath was, or understood so intuitively what to preserve in their art. A detail appears, uneventful on its face, first in a journal or a drawing, then in a letter, sometimes more than one. Her mind was brilliantly off-kilter, its emphasis falling in surprising places.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Here is the more or less abrupt shedding, in extremis, of the 'stiff,' 'artificial' voice that infected her early poems and stories and from which she had been working to free herself for many years. The book provides, in the end, an account of an ordinary anguish out of which Plath produced something extraordinary.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHarper's Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An exemplary edition offering a textured portrait of an iconic poet.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This set of letters is a dazzling literary achievement, capturing the tender beauty of Plath’s richly lived, too short life.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Engaging and revealing, \u003cem\u003eThe Letters of Sylvia Plath\u003c\/em\u003e offers a captivating look into the life and inner thinking of one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePaul Alexander, Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A monumental gathering, in the first of two volumes, of the scattered correspondence of the now iconic—and canonical—poet and novelist…a multifaceted portrait of a thoughtful young woman who might have gone on to even greater accomplishments than she did… A literary milestone.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for The Letters of \u003cem\u003eSyliva Plath Vol I\u003c\/em\u003e:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“But these early letters reveal something the journals don’t: a flicker of uncertainty about Hughes that now seems prophetic…It’s not Plath’s death necessarily, or even the dissolution of her marriage, but her doubleness that’s been the abiding mystery…The achievement of this avalanche of letters is that it disabuses everyone of the notion that Plath wasn’t aware of her contradictions or in (some) control of them.”     - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eParul Sehgal, New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Letters of Sylvia Plath\u003c\/em\u003e underscores Plath’s jaw-dropping output, her rapid growth from merely talented to singular voice…Tapping well-known archives and unearthing fresh specimens…The result is a comprehensive portrait of the artist as a young woman, ardently—unnervingly—committed to literature and relationships.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Proustian in detail…giving us an incomparable portrait of American girlhood in the mid-20th century…Plath rises to wonderfully passionate heights in the love letters to Ted Hughes with which this first installment of her correspondence concludes.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmerican Scholar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888486346981,"sku":"NP9780062740588","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062740588.jpg?v=1730229194","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-letters-of-sylvia-plath-vol-2-19561963-isbn-9780062740588","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}