Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: A Story

“[Plath’s] story is stirring, in sneaky, unexpected ways. . . . Look carefully and there’s a new angle here — on how, and why, we read Plath today.”— Parul Sehgal, New York Times

Never before published, this newly discovered short story by literary legend Sylvia Plath is a remarkable allegorical tale about a young woman’s rebellion against convention and the forceful taking control of her own life.

Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom is a compelling coming of age story about a young woman’s fateful train journey.

Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.

“But what is the ninth kingdom?” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “It is the kingdom of the frozen will,” comes the reply. “There is no going back.”

This strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, a powerful work of psychological fiction written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

A newly discovered, never-before-seen story by Sylvia Plath.

Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman’s fateful train journey.

Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt” are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.

“But what is the ninth kingdom?” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “It is the kingdom of the frozen will,” comes the reply. “There is no going back.”

Sylvia Plath’s strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

Praise for The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volumes 1 and 2: “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…. Her mind was brilliantly off-kilter, its emphasis falling in surprising places.” - New Yorker

“Moving and revelatory…. These…letters provide astonishing insight into Plath’s inner state in the troubled months when she wrote her strongest poems…and are more intimate, more raw, than the rest of her correspondence.” - New York Times Book Review

“The second volume of Plath’s correspondence offers new revelations…. An exemplary edition offering a textured portrait of an iconic poet.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A dazzling literary achievement, capturing the tender beauty of Plath’s richly lived, too short life.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“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.”                           - Booklist (starred review)

“[Plath’s] story is stirring, in sneaky, unexpected ways…Look carefully and there’s a new angle here — on how, and why, we read Plath today.” - Parul Sehgal, New York Times