Search Results: First Editions by sylvia plath

London: William Heinemann,, 1963. An intimate family copy, with photograph of Frieda inscribed by Plath First edition, first impression, a superb association copy, with contemporary annotations by Ted Hughes and more recent annotations by Frieda Hughes; this copy at one time also had the ownership inscription of Plath herself on the front free endpaper. Loosely inserted is an intimate photo of Plath and the new-born Frieda, inscribed by Plath on the verso, "Frieda almost new Chalcot Square". This copy appears to have been read by Ted Hughes, with two pencil annotations in his hand in the text and marginal pencil lines in four locations. The marginal marks are next to passages relating to the recognition of truth, the "windowless corridor of pain... waiting to open up and shut [women] in again" (p. 68), and the persistence of life "no matter how much you knelt and prayed" (p. 174), while his annotations relate to Olive Higgins Prouty (1882-1974), the novelist and poet widely thought to be the basis… Read More

[Wellesley, Massachusetts]: n.p., 1945. Fine.. Original autograph manuscript of one of Plath's earliest poems, in a version preceding the 1946 revision published in her junior high school literary magazine and collected nowhere else. "The Snowflake Star" was one of a small cluster of early poems in which Plath first began experimenting with a group of images that would in many ways come to define her later work. In "A Winter Sunset," written around the same time (and published in the same issue of her junior high literary magazine THE PHILLIPIAN), the moon hangs above "the bare, black skeletons of trees." And in "To Miss Cox," from later in 1946, "The winter skies are leaden / The flying snowflakes sting." Plath biographer Heather Clark identifies the beginnings of Plath's "mature poetic voice" in these poems, a voice also heard in "The Snowflake Star." Its opening lines ("On a dark and cloudy day / I wandered in the woods away") point, in all their simplicity, directly ahead to 1956, when Plath… Read More

London: Heinemann, (1960). First edition of Plath's first regularly published book. Presentation copy, inscribed by Plath on the front free endpaper: "For Luke & Cynthia / with love - / Sylvia / April 13, 1961." A highly important association copy, rich in personal interest and history: E. Lucas (Luke) Myers, an aspiring writer from Tennessee, was intimately connected to Ted Hughes and Plath. Plath met Luke Myers at Cambridge, where she and Myers were studying, and admired his poetry and fiction. In her journal entry for February 25, 1956, she wrote: "I have learned something from E. Lucas Meyers (sic) although he does not know me and will never know I've learned it. His poetry is great, big, moving through technique and discipline to master it and bend it supple to his will. There is a brilliant joy, there, too, almost of an athlete, running, using all the divine flexions of his muscles in the act. Luke writes alone, much. He is serious about it; he does not talk much about it. This is the way." -… Read More

London: Heinemann, 1963. First edition of the author's classic novel. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a very good dust jacket, small names to the front free endpaper. Jacket design by Thomas Simmonds. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Rare and desirable. The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic. "In looking at the madness of the world and the world of madness [this book] forces us to consider the great question posed by all truly realistic… Read More

Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company, 1927. American poet, novelist, and short-story writer Sylvia Plath with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death by suicide in 1963.

London: Faber and Faber, 1965. First Edition. Near Fine. An advance uncorrected proof of the first edition. Bound in publisher's drab printed wraps, with review slip (formerly stapled to front cover) laid in. Foxing mostly to front wrap and textblock edge. Small pencil notation to first blank, with light pencil markings on corresponding pages. Bottom corners lightly bumped. An extremely scarce format of Plath's second second published book of poetry and one of her best-known works. It was published posthumously under the meddling watch of her widow Ted Hughes, who rearranged the order of the poems and replaced twelve Sylvia had selected with ones written slightly later.

Edinburgh: Tragara Press, 1960.

Edinburgh: The Tragara Press, 1960. Book. Fine. Soft cover. 1st Edition. A very fine, almost mint copy. First edition of Plath's first separately printed poem, one of only 60 copies. Stitched in original stiff card with marbled wrappers. Printed title label in a ruled border pasted to front cover. Finely printed on laid-paper with deckle edge, 4pp. (title page, 2 page poem, 1 blanc page). Alan Anderson, owner of the Tragara Press, was impressed with a short story by Ted Hughes and asked if he had anything else that he could print. Hughes suggested to print a poem by his wife, Sylvia Plath. Anderson printed around 60 copies of 'A Winter Ship'. Plath requested the removal of her name from the title, writing in June of 1960: "We thought we'd like the date, place and press in upright letters, as on the other proof, and my name deleted - as I'll write that on the inside myself, with Christmas greeting too. Plath was extremely pleased with the result, writing to Anderson on 23… Read More

London: Heinemann, 1963. First Edition. Good. First edition, first printing of one of Sylvia Plath's best-known work, here published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Bound in publisher's original black cloth-affect boards with spine lettered in gilt; lacking the dust jacket. Good. Lean to spine, covers stained, light foxing to textblock edge with a remainder mark to the bottom edge. Former owner name and date to front paste down, and letter "B" to front free endpaper. Thin line of paper residue to rear paste down. Pages toned and with an occasional crease. A serviceable copy.

Edinburgh: The Tragara Press, 1960. First edition of Plath's first "book". In a letter to the publisher, Alan Anderson, dated June 11th, 1960, Plath wrote: "I am writing on my own behalf to say how delighted my husband and I were with the proofs of ‘A Winter Ship'. I'm sending back the one we like best, with the border round it. We thought we'd like the date, place and press in upright letters, as on the other proof, and my name deleted - as I'll write that on the inside myself, with Christmas greeting too. Would four dozen copies be too much of a burden for you?" The present copy conforms to Plath's stated preferences. According to Anderson, about 60 copies of A Winter Ship were printed. A very fine copy.. 8vo, 4-page leaflet. A very fine copy.

London , 1962. Book. Very Good. Stapled A4 Sheets. First Edition. (19pp.) printed double-spaced rectos only, on 19 sheets. An original transcript of the only work Plath wrote specifically for the radio commissioned by the BBC & not to be actually published for another 6 years & even then only in a limited edition brought out by Turret Books in 1968. Rehearsal & Pre-Recording on 2nd August 1962. Cast: The Wife - Penelope Lee. The Secretary - Jill Balcon. The Girl - Janette Richer. All pages stamped "Not for reproduction without author's permission." Outer pages & edges a little foxed. One or two dog-eared pages & a single nick at left hand edge of last page..

THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS, Heinemann, 1960, first edition, fine in vg+/near fine dust-wrapper with some light tanning and two closed tears. 

London: Heinemann. Very Good+ in Good+ dust jacket. 1960. First. Hardback. Decorated off-white d/jkt; unclipped; a little marked; light wear to upper and lower edges -- internal repair to upper edge with clear tape; small pencil squiggle on front flap. Green buckram boards, clean and bright; binding tight; gilt titling bright; corners sharp. No offsetting from d/jkt flaps on pastedowns; pp clean.; 8vo (6" x 9"); 88 pages .

British Broadcasting Corporation, London., 1963. First edition. 12-inch, 33 1/3 rpm long-playing record. Originally recorded by the British Council for the BBC. The poems listed on the central labels are: ''The Rabbit Catcher'', ''The Applicant'', ''A Secret'', ''Cuts'', ''Stop Dead'', ''Nick and the Candlestick'', ''Medusa'', ''Purdah'', ''A Birthday Present'' and ''Amnesiac''. In his description of the original British Council recording, Tabor (D12) lists three poems which don't appear here and gives variant spellings of two which do. He makes no mention of this in-house BBC record. There are a number of textual differences with the published versions. All of the poems were less than a month old and three of them had been completed only the day before. Ink stamp on each central label: ''Refer to Copyright Dept. before… Read More

London , 1962. Book. Very Good. Stapled A4 Sheets. First Edition. (3pp.) MacBeth's intros, as with all poetry contributions separately stapled, set in double-spaced lines & printed rectos only, in this instance on 3 sheets. (6pp.) Plath; whose poem Berck-Plage was actually the final poem of the transmission. Recorded Monday 29th October 11.30 - 12.30 p.m. (1p) Baybars. (2pp.) Ghose. (3pp.) Porter. (2pp.) Lehmann. (2pp.) Redgrove. (3pp.) Tarn. All a little foxed & as fate would have it Plath's is probably the worst. Nonetheless self-evidently scarce..

New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Unbound. Very Good. Uncorrected long galleys of the first American edition. Very good with a little dampstaining to the edges of a few leaves, and with chips and additional tidemarks to the verso of page 58 (the title poem), which has a review slip taped to it and which evidently served as the outer wrap when these galleys were sent or stored. The table of contents lacks pagination and otherwise varies slightly from the published version (which presented the poems in a different order than the British edition). Fragile and rare - presumably only a handful of copies were prepared for use by the publisher.

London: Faber and Faber, 1977 First printing of the first edition. Book and dust jacket in fine condition. A beautiful copy.

London: Faber and Faber,, 1965. The Plath myth-making machine swung into action almost as soon as Ariel was published First edition, first impression, of the author's first posthumous poetry collection, her second overall, published two years after her suicide. Plath believed her Ariel poems to be the best she had produced and accurately predicted to her mother that "they will make my name" (Letters, p. 468). The collection was edited by Ted Hughes, who slightly altered Plath's ordering of the poems, omitted 13 pieces, and added another ten. According to Frieda Hughes, her father "wished to give the book a broader perspective in order to make it more acceptable to readers, rather than alienate them" (Ariel: The Restored Edition, 2007, p. xvi). While Ted Hughes's decisions have been the subject of criticism, he was successful in creating out of Ariel Plath's most enduring poetry book, the one which first gained her significant literary recognition and precipitated her rise to fame among scholars and… Read More

London: Steam Press,, 1974. Signed limited edition First edition, number 48 of only 50 numbered copies, with each broadside numbered and signed by Steadman. All the poems are further signed by their respective authors, including Lyman Andrews, Asa Benveniste, Ruth Fainlight, and Alan Sillitoe, except Plath's for obvious reasons. Loose title leaf, limitation leaf, and 6 folding broadside poems (3 of which with dust jackets). Housed in a dark blue blue cloth solander box. Each broadside illustrated, designed, and printed by Ralph Steadman. Extremities of sheets mildly rubbed, solander box slightly scuffed. An excellent copy. Tabor B37.

London: Faber and Faber,, 1965. The Plath myth-making machine swung into action almost as soon as Ariel was published First edition, first impression, of the author's first posthumous poetry collection, her second overall, published two years after her suicide. Plath believed her Ariel poems to be the best she had produced and accurately predicted to her mother that "they will make my name" (Letters, p. 468). The collection was edited by Ted Hughes, who slightly altered Plath's ordering of the poems, omitted 13 pieces, and added another ten. According to Frieda Hughes, her father "wished to give the book a broader perspective in order to make it more acceptable to readers, rather than alienate them" (Ariel: The Restored Edition, 2007, p. xvi). While Ted Hughes's decisions have been the subject of criticism, he was successful in creating out of Ariel Plath's most enduring poetry book, the one which first gained her significant literary recognition and precipitated her rise to fame among scholars and… Read More