LETTER and MANUSCRIPTS: Typed letter signed, to an early critic, with four typescript poems.
Unpublished Letter to her first Critic
with Early Poems from Smith College
Plath, Sylvia. Typed Letter Signed, “Sylvia Plath,” to Ramona Maher at Texas Christian University, March 16, 1954; one leaf, one page; creased at folds; few spots; with franked envelope.
Together with:
Plath, Sylvia. “Doomsday.” Typescript poem, “Smith College ’54,” annotated in pencil by Plath to indicate it had been sent to Harper’s.
Together with:
Plath, Sylvia. “To Eva Descending the Stair.” Typescript poem, “Smith College / Assignment III,” annotated in pencil by Plath to indicate it had been sent to Harper’s.
Together with:
Plath, Sylvia. “Go Get the Goodly Squab.” Typescript poem, “26 Elmwood Road / Wellesley, Massachusetts / Lawrence House / Smith College /Northampton, Massachusetts.”
Together with:
Plath, Sylvia. “Verbal Calisthentics [sic].” Typescript poem, “26 Elmwood Road / Wellesley 81, Mass.” Soiled with a few tears not impacting text.
An early letter – unpublished – in which Plath thanks the Romano Maher for reviewing “Carnival Nocturne” in her article “Conjectured Harbours” which had appeared in an unnamed journal. “[T]his is the first time I’ve seen anybody write a criticism of any of my work!” She provides, as requested, “recent information about me”: “I’m taking an extra semester at Smith this year as I missed the first term – so I’ll be a senior next year. I’ve had three poems accepted by Harpers’ which should be coming out sometime this present spring….” She includes copies of those three poems, as well as “Verbal Calistentics [sic].” She continues, in part:
Campus activities related to writing include serving on the editorial board of the “Smith Review”, our college literary magazine, and being a reporter and correspondent for the out-of-town newspapers in the college News Office…I’ve also been on our college Electoral Board…, served as Secretary for the Smith College Honor Board, and been a member of Alpha, our honorary society for the arts, and been elected a Junior Phi Beta…
My favorite novelist (at present) is Dostoevsky, while Dylan Thomas is my favorite modern poet – Gerard Manley Hopkins, Yeats, and W.H. Auden rank highest among my other models – also I’m a devotee of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence.
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