Description
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath are a collection of Sylvia Plath's personal journals from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. They document her struggles as a writer, and reveal more about her personal life than previously known.
For the first time in publication are the complete, uncensored journals of poet Sylvia Plath that she kept during the last 12 years of her life. Sixty percent of this book is material that has never been made public before, and more fully reveals Plath's personal and literary struggles. Photos.
Sylvia Plath began keeping a diary as a child. By the time she was at Smith College, when this book begins, she had settled into a nearly daily routine with her journal, which was also a sourcebook for her writing. Plath once called her journal her Sargasso , her repository of imagination, a litany of dreams, directives and imperatives , and in fact these pages contain the germs of most of her work. Plath's ambitions as a writer were urgent and ultimately all-consuming, requiring of her a heat, a fantastic chaos, even a violence that burned straight through her. The intensity of this struggle is rendered in her journal with an unsparing clarity, revealing both the frequent desperation of her situation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons. Written in electrifying prose, the journals provide unique insight, and are essential reading for all those who have been moved and fascinated by Plath's life and work. An abridged version of the Journals was first published in 1982, edited by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes. Now, for the first time, we have the complete journals, with all the material that had been suppressed by Hughes and by Plath's mother, Aurelia Plath, restored. What emerges is a more complete picture of the troubled poet, and especially a clearer view of the resentments she felt toward her husband and her mother. In addition, the inclusion of descriptions of her father -- a major presence in the Ariel poems -- and her parents' marriage, and of many sketches and ideas for stories and poems provide the reader with insight into the connections between Plath's life and her work.
Review:
From reviews of the British edition:
A literary event...The book has a raw immediacy that will only add to Plath's iconic reputation. - Harpers & Queens
The journals are cause for celebration...Given the intensity and rawness of their writing, at moments it feels like walking straight into someone else's dream. -Jacqueline Rose
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