The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Everything that survives from 1950 to 1962, unedited, including what Ted Hughes cut. Ambition, rage and craft at a length that makes the poems look like distillations.
Plath kept journals from 1950 to 1962, and everything that survives is here unedited, including material Ted Hughes cut from earlier editions. Ambition, rage, self-assessment and craft run through them at a length that makes the poems look like distillations, and the shifts in her circumstances, including the electroshock treatment, are visible up close.
Recommended by 1 Person
Tyler Cowen
Usually journals bore me after the first fifty pages. But this lengthy volume is fascinating throughout, and arguably her greatest achievement? At the very least worth a try. She maintained an impossibly high level of writing across these years, plus you see (close up) the shifts in how her life was going, electroshock therapy and all. Recommended.
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